


Begging You (To Keep On)

by orphan_account



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Gen, Inhuman AU, takes place in season 2A, this was supposed to be a oneshot and it got out of hand
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-19
Updated: 2016-03-17
Packaged: 2018-05-02 10:44:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 51,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5245367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons had just been assigned to SciOps when an accident in the biology lab changed everything. </p><p>Agent Melinda May pulled the only survivor from the rubble, and Jemma has been on the run ever since. Hydra will stop at nothing to get their hands on her and her abilities. With the fall of SHIELD, Jemma has absolutely nobody she can trust. </p><p>Unless, that is, Fitz can convince her that not everyone in SHIELD was Hydra. </p><p>An Inhuman!Jemma AU, prompted by the magnificent amazingjemma.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. you put a fever inside me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amazingjemma](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amazingjemma/gifts).



> What am I doing? Why am I starting a new multi chap? I can't be stopped. 
> 
> Just a quick note on Jemma's powers: I modeled them after Crystal, an Inhuman from the comics. She has the ability to alter and control oxygen molecules, which seemed like a very Jemma Simmons power. I also liked how it tied in with the "one breath for the two of us" lack of oxygen thing. And you'll see that tie in to this fic as well. 
> 
> Oxygen can do loads of things. So basically, some of her powers are: starting fires, creating gusts of wind/dust storms/little tornados, and manipulating water. 
> 
> This whole story takes place in 2A, before San Juan. Ward has recently escaped, SHIELD is operating outside of the law, and Cal is trying desperately to get to Skye.

[Year: 2011]

Coughing and spluttering, she pulls herself slowly out of the rubble. Purple mist clouds her vision, and she gasps in horror as she looks to her right and sees what was once her colleague—turned inexplicably, now, to stone. 

Whimpering, she crawls toward Theresa. She gently touches her face and screams when the other girl turns, slowly, into dust. 

“Agent Simmons,” a calm voice sounds behind her. 

She whips her head around and sees a stern-looking Asian woman that she vaguely recognizes from somewhere. 

“My name is Agent May,” the woman says calmly. “I need you to follow me. Right now.” 

Agent May. The Cavalry. That’s how she knows this woman’s face. 

Agent May grabs her hand and begins running, tugging Jemma along. A panicked feeling rises up inside of her, and then her entire body starts to feel like her stomach does when she looks down from a tall height. The same whooshing feeling crashes over her, repeatedly, and she notices that the air around them has become volatile. Wind whips around them, violently, and small tornados begin to form. 

“Agent Simmons, I need you to calm down,” May manages through gritted teeth. “We need to get you out of here.” 

“What?” Jemma breathes. “Where…what’s happening?” 

“I’m so sorry,” May replies. Before Jemma can react, Agent May is sticking a needle into the side of her neck. 

The last thing she sees before the blackness is May’s glassy eyes, full of regret and apologies as her arms reach out to catch her. 

She wakes up in a cold facility that will be her nightmare for the next three hundred and seventy days. 

*** 

[Year: 2014] 

She pulls the hood up over her head as she rounds a corner, the street lamp illuminating her on the dark street. Jemma forces herself to relax her shoulders and neck, shoving her hands into the pockets of her jacket. The uncomfortable sensation of being watched continues, but that’s nothing new. 

What she doesn’t know is whether it’s Hydra or Cal that’s watching her. The crazed doctor has been trying to recruit him into his strange revenge fantasy against Phil Coulson, which Jemma knows is insane because Phil Coulson died, shortly before her…accident. All she’s sure of is that whoever is chasing her isn’t SHIELD, because SHIELD doesn’t exist. She’s not sure if it ever did, despite having attended their Academy and even started a job at SciOps. Jemma momentarily lets her guard down, thoughts wandering to her partner for those sweet, blissful years at the Academy. She thinks of the apartment they got when they first got stationed at SciOps. 

She shakes herself of this train of thought. That was before, before the explosion in the lab and the inexplicable purple mist clouding the biology lab that only she walked out of. 

Footsteps grow progressively closer as she hustles down the street, senses piqued and alert. It's been years since she’d become…whatever it is that she is now and these people, these organizations, they won’t leave her alone. 

She wants to use all of this power built up inside her for good, but more often than not she’s too busy running. 

A scream breaks through the quiet and she rushes forward toward the alley where it came from. All thoughts of her potential captors leave her mind as she focuses on the female scream. 

“PLEASE! LEAVE ME ALONE!” 

This spurns her forward, and the little boost of speed that came with her altered biology takes her to the mouth of the alleyway in record time. She raises her hand, shuts her eyes, and focus on the oxygen molecules around her. 

With just the smallest bit of alteration, she’s able to manipulate them into a strong and focused gust of wind, sending the man flying backward against the opposite wall. Jemma runs to the girl, a pretty brunette a couple of years younger than herself. 

“Are you okay? I promise I won’t hurt you,” Jemma says, approaching the woman cautiously. 

She smiles. “I’m fine. Thank you so much. That was—what you just did was incredible.” 

“I’m going to need you to not tell anyone about that,” Jemma winces. She moves over toward the man, checking his pulse and letting out a small hum of relief to find that he’s just knocked unconscious. “Feel free to call the police, have this man arrested.” 

The brunette flinches. “About that. He’s actually—my colleague.” 

“Your what?” 

“My co-worker,” she admits awkwardly. Her hand hovers near her ear and suddenly, Jemma understands. The scared woman was not scared after all. 

They had drawn her here on purpose. 

“My name is Skye. I’m with SHIELD and I’m here to help.” 

Jemma’s eyes grow wide. “SHIELD doesn’t exist.” 

Skye puffs out an annoyed breath. “Okay, it does, but whatever, we don’t have time right now. Listen, there’s someone else looking for you, and—“ 

“Cal?” Jemma laughs humorlessly. “Yes, I am quite well acquainted with Cal. He’s only been hunting me ever since the fall of your supposed organization. I’m going to ask you one more time. Let me go, because I do not want to hurt you.” 

Boots smack hard against the pavement, and another man, this one slimmer and shorter, slides to a stop in the alleyway. The lighting is poor, but she can just see the outline of his profile. Skye makes a move toward her and Jemma gives her a warning glance

She raises her hand, prepared to alter the molecules around her however she needs to in order to get out of this, when his brogue cuts through the heavy quiet of the alley. 

“Simmons?” a voice she knows better than her own asks hesitantly. She’s never heard that much anguish in his voice and the sheer heartbreak in the sound is stifling.

Her hand immediately falls. “Fitz?” 

He moves swiftly, but she can’t do this right now. There’s too much at stake and too many lives in the balance, so she quickly gusts Skye toward Fitz before concentrating as much as she can at her hand. 

A tiny flame arises on her palm and it makes her smile, as it always does, because even though she’s a human disaster, sometimes her powers feel extraordinarily beautiful. She builds a quick wall of fire between herself and the SHIELD agents. Then she runs, climbing the fence at the end of the alley and jumping over it. 

She doesn’t look back, and she sure as hell does not stop running. 

*** 

She escapes and evades them for weeks after that but they catch up with her at a motel in Montana that she’s been hiding out in. 

Only this time, it’s worse than whoever Skye and Fitz are working for, because it’s Cal. Insane, crazy, hellbent on destruction Cal. 

“There she is,” he cheers when he finds her in the ice room. She’s wearing pajamas, barefoot and vaguely shivering in the cold. She glances down at the bucket of ice in her hands and concentrates on the oxygen molecules once again, frozen in their current state. She imagines the one oxygen molecule for every two hydrogen, and watches as the ice melts. She throws it in front of her, freezing cold, and attempts to freeze it. A woman steps up behind him, knives for nails, and slashes through it with a high-pitched squeaking noise. 

Jemma flinches as the nails slice her chest, from her heart up across her collarbone. She uses what little momentum the oxygen has in the room to create a heavy gust that pushes Cal and the woman backward. 

“Cal!” a male voice barks. The sound of guns cocking is a strangely welcome distraction, as it forces Cal and his companion to turn away from Jemma and into the hallway. Her eyes scan the tiny ice room for any way out, but she finds none. 

“Why don’t we talk?” 

She’s only met Skye once, and it was very brief, but she recognizes the voice and apparently so does Cal. 

“Daisy,” he sighs, shuffling forward. The girl with the knife nails glares back toward Jemma, who raises her hands in innocent surrender. At least, it would be innocent surrender if her hands weren’t weapons. 

She uses the opportunity of tense silence in the hallway to gust the woman across the hallway, toward where Skye and a few other people dressed in all black with their guns drawn. 

Jemma slams her body through the door to her motel room, locking it behind her and quickly gathering her things. She doesn’t have much, just enough for a backpack, but she can’t risk leaving anything behind. It’s become more and more difficult to come across money. 

She changes faster than she ever has in her life, slipping in to her jeans, tank, and hoodie as she shoves her feet into her black boots. What she wouldn’t give for a new pair of bloody shoes…

Jemma runs to the window, blinking down at the height and shutting her eyes in a panicked breath of air. 

“Come on, you can do this. Just five stories.” 

Her door swings open quickly, and the slim build of Leo Fitz slips in before he quickly closes it again. 

“How did you do that?” she rushes out. He stares at her, gaping, for a long moment. 

“I’m the gadget guy,” he eventually breathes. “I—Jemma, they—they told me you were dead.” 

She wonders how he’d taken the news. What he’d done with all of her stuff that was in their apartment. She wants to tell him how relieved she is to see that he’s alive and well, that he’s whole. He’s different than he was before. A bit more filled out, stubble creating shadows on his cheeks. He’s in tact gear, too, which she never would have expected to see her best friend in before. She wonders if she looks as different to him as he does to her. 

Mostly, she wonders how the hell she never knew he was Hydra. 

“I’m surprised they didn’t tell you,” Jemma bites out. 

His brow furrows. “Why would they have told me, and not anyone else?” 

She backs up against the window, gripping the tiny lock and turning it slowly. “Given that you’re Hydra, of course.” 

Fitz gapes openly at her. “Simmons, you’ve got the wrong idea.” 

“I don’t think I do,” she says simply. “I was held in a facility for an entire year, Fitz. An entire year before I managed to get out. What SHIELD—what Hydra, did to me—“ 

He gulps heavily and moves toward her wearily. “Jemma, I swear to you, that is not us. We’re SHIELD. Really SHIELD, and we’re here to help you. There was a Hydra sleeper on my team, and he escaped our custody. He knows who you are. We need to get you back to our base, where you’ll be safe—“ 

Jemma snorts derisively. “Safe? You think I’ll ever be safe?” 

“Let me help you,” he pleads. His blue eyes are so incredibly sincere that she almost believes him. 

She shakes her head. “I just want to be left alone, Fitz. That’s all I want.” 

His jaw twitches at her words, but he nods resolutely. She chooses to ignore the tears floating in his eyes. “Fine. But let me help you with that cut, okay? Then—then I’ll help you get out of here.” 

Now that he mentions it, the blood is starting to drip into her shirt and it’s one of the only ones she has. It also burns hot, so she nods weakly and sits on the edge of the bed. He kneels down in front of her, rummaging through his backpack and pulling out a small first aid kit. 

“You were always better at this,” he warns, voice gruff as he swipes some disinfectant over the cut. She hisses against the acidic burn and grasps at his hand balancing on her knee. 

“I can see that,” she groans. “What the hell is that?” 

“Rubbing alcohol?” 

“Ugh, Fitz!” Jemma exclaims. “Hydrogen peroxide! Not rubbing alcohol!” 

He chuckles, low and warm, and even though she’s supposed to hate him, he was her best friend for so long. Butterflies flutter in her gut as he places gauze along her injury, taping it up gently. 

“Should be proper now,” he grins, giving her a little wink. The smile slides right off of his face when he meets her eyes. “Jemma?” 

She shakes herself and stands rapidly. “Nothing. Sorry. I need to get out of here. It sounds like they’re getting closer.” 

Fitz stills, listening to the commotion in the hallway. From the sound of it, Cal has a couple of extra friends with him. They probably have a couple of minutes before Skye comes barging in. He reaches over onto the desk and jots down an address and a phone number. 

“If you change your mind, if you’re willing to hear me out, meet me here in eight days. 9 p.m. Or you can call that number, any time.” 

She licks her lips and nods shortly, shoving the paper into her backpack as she hoists it over her shoulder. “Wait. We need to make it look like I got away.” 

They overturn a few items and Jemma insists on tying his hands together with a pillow case, much to his chagrin. Just as she’s finished, the door explodes inward. Jemma looks down at the height, five stories down, and takes a deep breath. 

“Jemma?” Fitz asks. He seems to be putting it together, what she’s about to do. “Jemma, no! JEMMA!” 

She looks back one last time before she falls, honing in on the molecules surrounding her. It’s a bit more difficult than it usually is, given the speed with which she’s moving and the fact that she’s never tried this particular trick before. Angling her palms downward, she focuses on creating a gust. When it kicks up, it works against the force of gravity. 

It hurts a little bit, the pressure building up from her palms up toward her shoulders. In fact, it hurts a lot. Her landing is a little squirelly and a lot graceless, but when she glances back up at the window when her feet touch the ground, she sees Fitz, hanging out of it and staring down at her in a combination of awe and amusement.

She shoots him a wink and takes off running. 

**** 

It doesn’t take long for Jemma to start wondering if she should have listened to what Fitz had to say. He had always been honest with her, even when he didn’t want to be. Friends since their first project, they’d been frequently mashed into one long name—FitzSimmons—and sometimes she swore he knew her mind better than she did. 

She remembers his favorite color (a dusty shade of greyish blue), the way he takes his tea, his mother and her amazing cooking, his favorite beer, the way his thick-knit cardigans felt wrapped around her…

She remembers a lot about him, actually, and she finds herself feeling an intense pull of nostalgia as she thinks about it all. All of these little facts, the bits and pieces of who he is and who they were together, overwhelm her somewhere along the road on Day 5. 

She’s managed to hitchhike her way closer to the address. It’s in Washington; or at least, that’s what she learns from a rest-stop map. When she figures out exactly how far it is, she realizes that she may just have to do the unthinkable. 

She waits until the truck driver finds a decent-sized town somewhere in Idaho. Jemma waves goodbye to him and climbs out in the parking lot of a mall. She looks around, trying to find a car that she won’t feel too bad about taking. Any of the ones with carseats are out. So are the ones with textbooks strewn across the backseats. 

“Bingo,” she whispers as she peers into the window of a Mercedes. It looks like it belongs to a real jerk—or at least that’s what she’s going to choose to believe. Picking locks has never been her thing, but she manages to use enough concentrated air pressure to make the door pop open. Sliding inside, she focuses her palms onto the dashboard, shutting her eyes in concentration and letting out a small squeak of victory when the car starts. 

Hastily buckling up, she speeds out of the parking lot and turns on the car’s radio. 

That’s when it occurs to her that the car has a GPS system. For a moment, she’s breathlessly excited because she won’t have to rely on gas station maps to make her way to this address, but on the other hand—this car can probably be tracked, and the owner will most likely not be pleased to find it missing when he returns from shopping. 

She does her best to keep her eyes on the road while she reads the numbers off of the scrap of paper, dialing on her burner phone in the dim light. 

He picks up after only a couple of rings. “Jemma?” 

“How’d you know it was me?” she smiles. 

“Just did,” he hums. She can tell that he’s grinning and it makes her own smile widen. 

“So listen, I need your help.” 

“With what?” he asks immediately. “Are you okay?” 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, I just—I kind of stole something, and I need some help lying low.” 

There’s a long pause.

“What did you steal, Simmons?” 

“I may or may not be currently driving a stolen car. It’s a Mercedes, it has a GPS in it. I don’t want to be tracked.” 

He heaves a bereaved sigh. “Let me get Skye. She can figure out how to disable it.” 

She hears him calling for the other agent, and then the bouncy voice of Skye. “What’s up, Dr. Fitzy?” 

It occurs to Jemma, suddenly and powerfully, that perhaps Fitz is somehow involved with Skye, beyond the label of co-workers. It makes her a little bit nauseous and she smashes it down. 

“Hey there,” Skye greets after a brief tussle for the phone. “I see Fitz is trying to hog you from the rest of us.” 

“I wouldn’t exactly call it that. Did he tell you—“ 

“That you stole a Mercedes and need some help? You bet your British ass he did. Pull over when you can. I just need the license plate.” 

“Okay. What are you going to do?” 

“Just some quick hack magic. I’ll register the car to you. Or, someone who looks like you. How’s the name Jennifer Simon?” 

“It sounds great, Skye. Thank you.” 

“Great. I’ll disable the tracking capabilities on the GPS, too. You should still be able to use it though. If you have any problems, just call Fitz’s super secret phone and ask for me.” 

Jemma laughs as she thanks Skye once again. She goes to hang up, but Fitz’s voice freezes her. 

“Hey,” he pants. “Sorry about her. She’s…a character.” 

“She seems like it. So are you two—um—like, are you--?” 

She huffs in frustration at her own awkwardness. 

“Are we…?” Fitz asks, confused. Then she hears it click in his mind. “Oh. Ooh. God, no. She’s like the younger sister I never wanted.” 

“Oh please, you would have loved to have a little sister,” Jemma teases. “Oh, great, a petrol station! Let me hop out and I’ll read off the plate.” 

She rattles it off to him and listens to him repeat the numbers and letters to Skye. 

“Have you given any thought to that—that address?” he stumbles. She bites down on her smile.

“Why do you think I stole a car, Fitz? You gave me an address in Washington…while we were in Montana. Not all of us have access to a jump jet.” 

He curses. “I didn’t even think of that, Jemma. We can—“ 

“Stop,” she laughs. “I’ve already committed grand theft auto. I might as well keep going. Keep your phone on. Y’know, just in case my crime spree gets out of hand.” 

“Just promise not to…I don’t know, shoot anyone, okay?” 

“I’m an outlaw now, Fitz,” she says cheekily. “See you in three days.” 

“Three days,” he repeats. She waits a moment, listening for the line to click off. It doesn’t.

Her smile grows as she flips her crappy convenience store cell phone shut.


	2. hello my old heart (it's been so long)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know what's cute? I have several chapters of this already written, and I thought to myself, "perhaps I will be one of those writers who posts on a schedule and doesn't just vomit out a fic intermittently." 
> 
> But just as I am a hot mess of a person, I am also a hot mess of a fic writer, so I'm already spitting out this second chapter.

Three days later, she finds him in the parking lot of a hotel near one of the most beautiful waterfalls she’s ever seen. Not that she’s seen all that many, but this one might just take the cake. 

“Why here?” she asks as soon as he approaches her. His hands are stuffed into the pockets of a hoodie and he fails to hide the smile on his face. 

“Honestly? I’ve just wanted to come here for a really long time,” he grins. “Figured it might give me an excuse to make the trip.” 

“I want to listen to what you have to say,” she blurts out. “We…we were so close, you and I. I don’t know how to just pretend like that wasn’t the case. Whoever you work for, whatever you’re doing…I just need to know.” 

“Yeah. Yeah, we’ll do that. Listen, I don’t want to—I’m not trying to be weird, but I got us a room. For talking purposes. And I figured you might want a nice shower. Not with me. By yourself.” 

His awkward mumbling takes her back to the Academy, to orange and blue checkered shirts with purple cardigans and she laughs. And she can’t stop laughing, even after he’s long stopped. She’s near hysterics, because this is her life. She’s standing with her best friend in the parking lot of what might be the most romantic setting on the planet, she has superpowers, and he very well may be the enemy. 

He rolls his eyes at her and grabs her threadbare backpack out of her new car, throwing it casually over one shoulder and beckoning her to follow him. 

“Come on, crazy.” 

The hotel is insanely nice, and she feels extremely out of place in her dirty clothing. Jemma tucks her hair behind her ears self-consciously as Fitz leads her to the staircase. They climb one flight of stairs and he brings her to a stop in front of a door. 

“I got one with two beds. Obviously. I mean, I can also—just go home tonight, but uh, yeah, I..well..” 

She sighs playfully at him and shoves him, throwing her backpack down. “Oh my God,” she breathes, staring at the large room with wide eyes. She dashes to the window, pressing her hands against it as she gazes out on the illuminated falls. Then she runs full speed at one of the beds, belly-flopping onto it with a pleased giggle. 

“A bed. A real, honest-to-god bed,” she moans, burying her face in the pillows. 

When she looks up, eyes alight with warmth and excitement, she finds Fitz looking at her, completely stricken. 

“What’s wrong?” she asks worriedly. Her hands fly to her hair and she tries to compose herself. 

“Nothing,” he croaks. “It’s just—you being so excited about—a bed.” 

He sinks down onto the other bed and collapses back onto it, turning his head to face her. 

“I really believed you were dead, Jemma.” 

For a while, she had wondered if he knew she wasn’t and had just let her go. But that was before she’d seen him again, before she’d heard the desperation in his voice when he said her name for the first time in nearly three years. 

“I know.” 

“I lost it,” he admits hoarsely. “They told me you were gone and I just completely lost it.” 

She almost doesn’t want to ask, but she also needs to know. “What happened?” 

“For a while I was in denial. Kept saying you were still alive, that you somehow got out or something,” he tells her with a derisive laugh. “Well, I guess that wasn’t so crazy. I was going to leave SHIELD but there wasn’t really anywhere else for me to go. I…I uh, slept in your bed for the first three months, but then everything stopped smelling like you so I stopped. I was just going through the motions—wouldn’t work with anyone else, refused to let them assign me a new partner. Some other engineer tried to use your dendrotoxin patents to make our gun, and I attacked him and nearly got kicked out of SHIELD altogether.” 

He cuts off, voice thick. Jemma gets off of her bed and moves to his, laying down beside him as close as she dares to. 

“When I escaped, I tried to find you,” Jemma admits quietly. He reaches for her hand, capturing it with his. “I went to our apartment, but you were long gone.” 

He nods against the mattress. “Shortly after I attacked that guy Agent May showed up—Melinda May, the—“ 

“—Cavalry,” she finishes with him. “She’s the one who got me out of the lab. She gave me a head start. She knocked me out when I couldn’t control my powers, and when I woke up, I was in that facility.” 

Fitz gapes at her. “She recruited me for a mobile unit, Coulson’s unit, and—“ 

“Coulson is dead,” Jemma interrupts, brow furrowed. “I tried to tell that to Cal, but he didn’t believe me.” 

“That’s cause he’s kind of not dead,” Fitz says slowly. “Fury used an alien drug and a controversial memory replacement protocol to bring him back to life. When Hydra fell, Fury gave him his Toolbox, which basically holds all the information that SHIELD has.” 

“Fury is dead too.” 

“Nobody stays dead, I guess,” Fitz shrugs. “I wouldn’t believe it myself, if he didn’t rescue me from the middle of the ocean.” 

Jemma’s heart stops. “What?” 

“Ward was the specialist on our team. He and I got really close. He knew what happened to you, and he understood why I wanted to work alone. I only joined the team because I couldn’t stand working in our lab anymore, living in that apartment—he told me that he’d been where I was. Then Skye joined the team, and the three of us became really good friends. For the first time since you died—disappeared, sorry—I wasn’t alone.” 

Jemma scoots a little bit closer to him, feeling a sudden overwhelming urge to be as near to him as she can. 

“Turns out it was all an act. He was Hydra, sent by John Garrett to try to find out what had saved Coulson’s life. He had Skye shot and if it weren’t for you—“ 

“For me?” Jemma asks, confused. “I thought you said you thought I was dead.” 

Fitz bites down on his lip, hard, and stares furtively at the ceiling before looking at her wearily. “I had been imagining you. Hallucinating you, for a long time. I couldn’t get any work done unless Jemmaginary—that’s what I referred to her as—unless she was there talking to me. When Skye was shot, there was a hyperbaric chamber in the room and you—sorry, the fake version of you—told me what to do and I saved Skye’s life.” 

Jemma gives up on just holding his hand and wraps her arm around his torso. He inhales sharply and for a moment she debates retreating, but then he awkwardly maneuvers his arm underneath her neck and wraps his hand around her shoulder to pull her tighter. 

“We got the last of the GH-325—“ 

“—the alien drug?” 

“—yeah, the alien drug. So we got it to keep her alive, and it worked. Things got crazier from there, and then Hydra came into the light. I tried to stop him on our plane and Garrett ordered him to kill me. I ran into a medpod and he dropped it out of the sky and into the ocean. I was down there for a while, couldn’t figure out how to get out, and then you—imaginary you—figured it out.” 

Jemma squeezes him in anxiety at his story. 

“I had to use the defib to melt the seal on the window and blow it out. Basically a rigged explosive. I was running out of oxygen, fast, and there was only enough left for one breath. I was so lightheaded and out of it by the time I was ready to blow the window, and I had started to believe you were really with me, so I tried to give my hallucination the oxygen instead.” 

“Fitz…” 

“Don’t worry, I worked it out at the last second. Or, well, you did. Imaginary you pushed it back onto me. My arm was broken and I barely made it to the surface. I could barely stay afloat, but then Fury showed up in a helicopter and rescued me. SHIELD has been underground, rebuilding, for months now. Hydra has been trying to track you down since you escaped their facility—which, by the way, was entirely Hydra-run, there were no SHIELD agents there—and Cal is also trying to find you. We got Hydra intel about hunting down a Gifted so we went to find you. We had no idea it was you.” 

She soaks in the information he’s given her, tightening her grip once again. She releases a shaky breath against his neck and she feels him shiver. The thought of Fitz, her Fitz, trapped alone at the bottom of the ocean, causes her such anxiety that for a moment she forgets to breathe. A flare of rage rises quickly inside of her. It is the kind of anger she’d never been capable of before she changed, and it takes her several long moments to push it back down. Breathing deeply, she attempts to shift her focus away from the positively lethal hate that bubbles up when she thinks of this man, Fitz’s friend, who nearly killed him. Who could have caused him permanent damage, who could have let him suffocate all alone. This kind of anger needs to be carefully, methodically controlled. The last thing she wants is for it to become unleashed in Fitz’s presence. 

Hurting people has never been easy for her, but hurting Fitz, even by accident, would be utterly unbearable. 

“So you’re really SHIELD?” she finally asks. 

“Yeah,” he murmurs. “What’s left of SHIELD at least. You’d be Indexed if you came, but Skye has been put in charge of it and she’s really…passionate about humanely treating powered people. You’d like her, I think.” 

“What would I do? Just…be monitored all the time? Tested?” 

“No!” he bursts out loudly. She flinches and he grimaces apologetically. “No. I wouldn’t let anyone do that to you. We’d be working in a lab. Back to being…partners.” 

Jemma licks her lips. “I haven’t been in a lab in years. Since the accident. I don’t know if I can remember.” 

He smiles softly. “You practically had superpowers before you got superpowers. Two PhDs at seventeen? C’mon.” 

A quiet giggle spills from her lips and it’s the most genuine sound she’s made in years. He turns his head to look at her and her breath hitches in her throat at their proximity and the reverent look in his eyes. He swallows, hard, and her eyes are drawn to his throat and then to his lips. 

She doesn’t know what possesses her, but she leans forward, brushing her lips against his tentatively. Jemma expects him to stiffen up, pull away from her, react negatively in some way, but instead he melts immediately into her, all tension seeping from his muscles. 

She pulls away slowly, keeping her eyes shut. She feels his lips chase hers as she backs away and it causes her to smile. Fitz laughs disbelievingly and traces her cheekbone with his fingertips. 

“Wow.” 

She nods in agreement. “Mhm. Wow.” 

“Skye sent me with supplies for you, by the way,” he says quietly, still studying her face as her eyes slowly open. “She figured you might want some clean clothes and—other things.” 

She laughs at his discomfort and impulsively presses another kiss to his lips before rolling off of the bed toward his bags in the corner of the room. “A shower really does sound heavenly right now.” 

“The one on the left,” he tells her as she stares down at them. She grabs it, hoisting it onto the desk and unzipping it. She finds a pair of jeans as well as a pair of spandex pants, and a few cotton t-shirts in monochromatic shades. There are also a couple of long-sleeved henleys that are soft to her touch. 

She thinks the best part may be the ten or so pairs of underwear and two bralettes. There’s also a toiletry bag with razors, a small can of shaving cream, and shampoo and conditioner that smells like honey and vanilla. 

“You’re right,” she sighs as she inhales the scent. “I think I’m really going to like Skye.” 

He shoots upright. “You mean you’re coming back?” 

Jemma shrugs. “I’m thinking about it.” 

He beams so brightly that she nearly has to look away from his unbridled excitement. Jemma smirks and gathers the toiletries, heading toward the bathroom. When she shuts the door, she releases a giddy breath. Her eyes catch on her reflection in the mirror and she stills. Her cheeks are flushed, eyes bright, and her face is free of stress and worry lines. 

Turning away, she turns on the water and lets the steam slowly fill the room as she peels her flthy clothing off of herself. She slowly removes the gauze from her cut and winces at the sensation of cool air hitting it. Collecting the items she’ll need, she steps into the spray and groans at the sensation of the hot water on her skin. 

She takes her time in the shower, scrubbing all the grit and grime of days of hitchhiking off of her body. She carefully shaves, reveling in the smoothness left behind. 

She’s safe, for now, and the thought makes her a little playful. Jemma’s hands raise up on either side of the stream of water and she pictures the molecules, grinning as each droplet of water separates. They hang, suspended, in the air around her. She giggles loudly, the sound echoing off of the tile. She claps her hands together suddenly, and the force on the molecules causes them to create an intense wave that knocks against her, causing her to slip. She screams as she falls, and Fitz immediately runs into the bathroom. 

“JEMMA?” 

She pulls herself to her feet just as he opens the shower curtain in a panic. His face goes completely slack and he looks her over once, slowly, and then his eyes shoot to her face. He’s bright red and stuttering nonsense. 

She should be embarrassed, she thinks, that her best friend who she hasn’t seen in two years is seeing her naked but so much has changed about her and somewhere along the line, she forgot how to be genuinely afraid. She raises her hand and manipulates the water again so that it suspends around her. 

“Isn’t this crazy?” 

He’s still staring at her face. Rolling her eyes but still grinning, she claps her hands and makes the wave once again. It hits her forcefully and she stumbles slightly, causing Fitz to reach into the water to steady her. His hands grasp at her hips to keep her upright and she suddenly doesn’t feel like laughing. 

His forearms are getting soaked, and just as she opens her mouth to invite him in, he pulls away and closes the curtain swiftly. 

“Too fast, probably,” she mutters to herself as she finishes washing her hair. “C’mon, Jemma, it hasn’t been that long.” 

But it has been that long, since she’s tried to have any kind of romantic entanglement. Once they’d started at SciOps, she’d contemplated making a move on Fitz. Section 17 technically applied to all agents, but it was informal in the office setting. SHIELD mostly enforced it on the field agents and specialists. If she hadn’t been so scared of breaking a rule that was primarily just paper, maybe things would have been different. 

She turns off the water and steps out, wrapping a luxuriously fluffy towel around her body. She pats herself dry, smoothing on the vanilla lotion that Skye supplied, and nearly moans as she applies it. It’s been so long since she used actual skincare products. The scent of it alone is enough to spring happy tears in her eyes. 

Jemma curses, realizing she left her clothes in the room, and sighs at the inevitable awkwardness that is bound to ensue when she emerges, once again, in her towel. She walks out and finds Fitz pacing, hands clasped behind his neck. 

He spins around to face her and then quickly looks away again. Jemma bites on her lip to restrain a giggle, but it bursts from her anyway. 

“What?” he snaps. 

“You’re cute,” she says simply, shrugging as she roots through the duffel bag for some underthings. She frowns. “Hey, would you happen to have anything I could sleep in? Skye only gave me day clothes.” 

Fitz huffs shakily, unzipping his own bag and then staring down at it. She laughs and grabs a t-shirt and boxer shorts from the top. Fitz gapes like a fish as she goes back into the bathroom, shutting it behind her as she quickly changes. When she emerges, he’s changed into pajamas pants and is in the process of tugging the hem of his undershirt over his torso. 

“Want to watch a movie?” she suggests, attempting to break the tension. He nods eagerly and crawls onto his bed, grabbing the remote and flicking the large flatscreen on. 

“Anything you haven’t seen?” he asks casually. Jemma pegs him with a stare and he shakes his head at himself. “Right. That was dumb.” 

“They made a new Spiderman? Another one?” 

Fitz snorts. “Yeah. Can you believe that? Three different Spidermen in ten years. Ridiculous.” 

“Honestly,” she agrees. She suddenly squawks. “They made a new Jurassic Park?!” 

“You’ll love it,” he insists, renting it and grinning at her as she bounces onto the bed. He doesn’t seem to think it odd that she chooses his bed rather than moving to her own. 

She’s loud during movies. It’s one of the little things he’d forgotten about her, and he can’t find the energy to be annoyed at her, because this has been one of the strangest and most amazing nights of his life. She scoots closer to him and shyly interlocks their legs. The heat of her thigh against his causes a wave of butterflies to wash over his stomach and he makes no effort to quash the feeling. 

She’s thinking about coming back, but it’s not for sure. If this is it, if this is what he gets, he wants to hold onto it for as long as he possibly can. 

She chats through the film, both to him and to the characters on the screen. She debunks the science of crossbreeding dinosaurs and they launch into a debate as to whether or not the gyrospheres would actually be possible. 

The movie ends with Jemma excitedly bouncing up and down on the mattress, imparting him with her impression of the main female character. 

“It was amazing, how she ran from that dinosaur in heels,” Jemma rants. “If I hadn’t seen some women in Ops do some amazing things in those shoes I would probably say it was impossible, but Claire Dearing was a national treasure in this film, Fitz, and—“ 

He cuts her off by pressing a kiss to her lips, not because he wants her to stop talking, but because he’s suddenly gripped with the fear that he may not get another chance and she did it earlier so he figures he gets to do it at least once, too. She immediately responds, pressing into him as her fingers comb through his curls. 

He pulls away, breathless, and she grins at him before pulling him in again, swinging one leg over his lap. Her thighs bracket his as she deepens the kiss, and when he nips on her bottom lip, a sudden, strong gust of wind blows through the room. She immediately pulls back, eyes wide as Fitz laughs. 

“I’m usually really good at controlling it,” Jemma frets. Fitz hugs her to him. 

“Made you lose control, did I?” 

“Don’t get cocky.” 

“Oh, Simmons. It’s too late for that.” 

She giggles into his neck and rolls off of him to sprawl at his side. 

“So what is it that you can do, exactly?” Fitz asks. 

“I can manipulate oxygen molecules,” Jemma explains. She cups her hands into a little sphere and concentrates, sculpting a small, vibrating globe of wind. She calms it down before she opens her palms out. 

“That night in the alley, you started a fire.” 

“Fire is just an oxygenated reaction,” Jemma teases. “C’mon, Fitz, I know you were second in our class but you have to know that.” 

He huffs and rolls his eyes. “What else can you do?” 

“Well apparently I can fly,” she grins. “I’d never tried that before, but there was no other way out of that motel.” 

Fitz yelps, sitting up on his elbow as he stares down at her, aghast. “Jemma! You threw yourself out of a bloody window!” 

“Desperate times, Fitz!” she protests. “Besides, it all turned out alright, didn’t it? The only way I learn what the limits of my abilities are is through trial and error.” 

“Trial and error? You should be doing controlled experiments—“ 

“—at what point do I have the time or even the safe environment to—“ 

“—with safety precautions in place, and—“ 

“—conduct that kind of process, I’ve been running for over a year now—“ 

“—absolutely mental, that’s what you are, and what would have—“ 

“—I probably would have been fine, I have a fast healing rate—“ 

“—snapped your neck on the pavement, and—“ 

This time it’s Jemma who shuts him up with her lips. He gladly complies, melting into it as he leans over her. 

“What are we doing?” he mumbles into her neck. 

“Hm?” 

“What are we…I mean…I thought you were dead and now—“ 

“And now we’re making out like teenagers?” Jemma finishes, a teasing lilt to her voice. He grins, rolling back to lean on his elbow once again.

“Y’know what I mean, Jemma. I just never thought we were…like this.” 

Jemma’s face falls. “What?” 

Now he’s confused, blinking at her as her eyes become closed off. “I just…I never thought of you like…like this.” 

This seems to make it worse, and her eyes drop away from his face completely as her hand comes up to nervously play with the pillowcase under her head. 

“I—um, I—“ 

She blows out a frustrated breath and sits up, scooting off of the bed. Fitz moves to follow her, but she grabs a room key off of the table and pushes her feet into her trainers. Still clad in his boxers and t-shirt, hair damp around her face, she looks a mess but she won’t even glance at him.

“Jemma, wait, I didn’t—“ 

“I can’t do this right now.” 

Then she’s gone, in a gust of wind. Back at the Academy and at SciOps, he would have let her cool off, given her space to think, but she’s spent years of her life running and he’s afraid that she won’t know how to do anything else. He leaps into action, not even bothering to slip in to his shoes. 

He catches her in the stairwell. She’s sitting on the landing between flights, her face in her hands. The whole stairwell is full of wind, pockets of twirling air forming miniature tornados. This makes climbing down the stairs difficult, but he eventually reaches her, collapsing onto the stair next to her and leaning his elbows on his knees. 

“Jemma, I didn’t mean anything by it. Do you remember when we met?” 

She nods into her hands, so he continues. 

“I spent weeks trying to come up with something clever enough to capture your attention. You were so pretty and so bloody smart, and I was seventeen and awkward and I’d never had a friend. When we started spending time together outside of class, I had a huge crush on you. Of course I did, but nobody had ever wanted to spend time with me and I was so scared that if I ever tried for anything more than your friendship, I’d ruin it all.” 

She looks up at him with watery eyes. “I was crazy about you.” 

He laughs bitterly. “Yeah well we were never the best at communicating. I thought about that a lot, when I thought you were gone. All the things I wish I had said to you, and now I have my chance and it’s just—it’s harder than I thought it would be, in my head.” 

Jemma smiles wistfully, leaning back against the wall next to her so that she can look at him. “Me too. I’ve always thought about what I should have done or said. So when you were here, really here in front of me, I guess I just…jumped in. And didn’t worry so much about the explanations or how much time has passed.” 

He nods in understanding, tongue darting out to wet his lips. She sees a muscle in his jaw twitch and then he looks at her, eyes blazing.

“Maybe we don’t need explanations.” 

Her breath catches in surprise and she smiles cautiously. “What do you mean?” 

“We’ve always known what the other person is thinking. Or at least, most of it. So maybe we don’t need to focus so much on explaining it all. It’ll come in bits and pieces and that can be okay too.” 

She beams at him. “Two scientists, accepting the fact that they won’t be getting any proof.” 

He cringes. “Oh, don’t say it like that. When you put it like that it—“ 

“—stresses you out,” Jemma finishes with a laugh. He stands, hauling her to her feet. 

“It’s really late. Let’s get some rest. You must be exhausted.” 

She doesn’t know how to tell him that she’s been exhausted, deep down in her bones, ever since that explosion. She doesn’t know how to explain what happened to her in that facility, and she’s not sure how to say that she doesn’t really know how to sleep anymore. Instead, she nods and lets him tug her against his side with one warm arm. 

She wordlessly slips into bed beside him, not bothering with the pretense of laying in the other one. He presses his chest to her back, arm notched in the little space between her hip and the bottom of her rib cage. She knots their ankles together and feels him kiss the back of her neck. 

“Your eyes are open,” he mumbles against her. 

“You can’t see my eyes.” 

“I can just tell.” 

“I have a hard time sleeping. I sleep in thirty minute shifts, usually. Little bits throughout the day and night.” 

His arm tightens around her and he pulls her even closer. “I have a mild sedative with me. Skye thought you might need it, what with the adrenaline and all.” 

Jemma considers this carefully. “I might—maybe I could try that. It would be—it would be good to sleep.” 

Her voice is soft and breakable, and it twists his gut. He stands, using his phone to light his bag as he rifles through it for the pills. He hands her a glass of water and watches her swallow it before she nestles back against him. 

“D’you want me to stay up till you fall asleep?” he asks. “Maybe you’ll feel better knowing that someone has your back.” 

“Haven’t had that in a long time,” she confesses. 

“Yeah you did,” Fitz tells her, nuzzling at her hair. “You just didn’t know it.” 

Slowly, her body becomes heavier with sleep and exhaustion. Her eyelids begin to flutter and she turns to curl into his chest. 

“Hey Fitz?” 

Her words are ever so slightly slurred, and it makes him smile. 

“Yeah?” 

“I thought you hated me, at the Academy.” 

He leans back, staring down at her. “What? Why would you ever think that?” 

“You always avoided me, and it seemed like you were trying to one-up me. But it makes…it makes sense now. You were trying to impress me.” 

He feels his face heat up and he drops a kiss to her hairline. “Yep. Puts it all into perspective, doesn’t it?” 

“Mhm. Just so you know, I was always impressed.” 

Her breathing evens out and even though he’s exhausted from his own trek and days worth of field missions, trying to protect gifteds from Cal and Hydra, he suddenly feels wide awake. 

It takes nearly an hour before he follows her into dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it might kind of feel like their relationship is progressing really quickly or strangely, and I kind of felt that way as I was writing it, BUT it's important to keep in mind how different this relationship is from canon/compare it to some canon moments. 
> 
> We see Fitz's attitude/feelings toward Jemma begin to change after he almost loses her in FZZT. In this fic, he truly believed she was dead. Gone forever. Kind of makes a man think back on what he had and wonder what could have been, ya know? 
> 
> And same for Jemma. She's been on the run for a while now, and before that she was trapped in a facility that she believed to be SHIELD, but was really Hydra. 
> 
> I think their emotional stances here are closer to the place we see them in Season 3, only without the whole Hogface Space Boyfriend in the way, so things are going to progress differently between them in this. I hope that doesn't put anyone off too much!


	3. thought i saw the devil (this morning)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For an Inhuman on the run, comfort never lasts long, and Fitz is forced to make a difficult choice.

In the morning, Jemma wakes to a slumbering Fitz beside her. She scoots closer toward his warmth and shuts her eyes once again, allowing herself this rare moment of peaceful rest. 

It is short-lived, though, because it is soon interrupted by a loud and insistent pounding on the door. Fitz shoots straight up in bed. 

“Wha? Who? Jem?” 

“Someone’s knocking,” she whispers to him. Fitz groans quietly. 

“Can’t get a second of bloody peace and quiet,” he complains. “Stay here, I’ll check it.” 

He sleepily stumbles toward the door, peeking through the hole as Jemma sits tensely up in bed. Her heart races with the possibilities of who it might be. 

“It’s Skye,” he informs her. He swings it open and Skye breezes in, dressed in full tact gear and looking decidedly agitated. 

“Hydra is coming. Ward might be in charge this time. We need to move.” 

Jemma is up and out of bed before Skye has even finished speaking, shedding Fitz’s clothes for the spandex pants and a t-shirt from the bag that Skye provided. Fitz, too, begins to change quickly, revealing his own tact outfit buried in his bag. Any sense of modesty or shyness is completely forgotten as they rush to ready themselves to run. 

Jemma moves instinctively toward the window. Ever since she learned of her ability to use her power like Iron Man-style thrusters, she’s been unafraid to leap from high distances. Skye races over and tugs her back. 

“This window leads directly into the falls. You’ll drown,” Skye says worriedly.

“What if I can push away the water?” Jemma retorts. Skye’s head cocks to the side in confusion. She’s still not sure what exactly Jemma’s powers are, but SHIELD has been under the impression that she can only control wind. 

Fitz, on the other hand, has a decent grasp on the limits of what Jemma can do. “That water is moving way too fast. The pure force of it—I don’t think you’d be able to manipulate the molecules into slowing down.” 

Jemma crosses her arms and huffs. “You saw what I did in the shower last night.” 

Skye lets out a delighted laugh. “Okay, I know this is a life and death situation, but I am so going to hear that story as soon as this is over. I never would have pegged Fitz as a shower sex kind of guy.” 

“Skye!” Fitz scolds, cheeks turning pink. “It wasn’t—we didn’t—“ 

Jemma takes pity on him. “Now is not the time. I think I can do it.” 

“Jemma, there is no way,” Fitz says firmly. “Even if you could slow it down enough to not drown, you’d be pounded to death once you fell over the falls. We need a new plan.” 

Skye presses a hand to her ear, listening intently to someone on her comms. “It doesn’t look like we have much time. The rest of the hotel has been evacuated.” 

Jemma quickly packs as much as she can into her backpack. Fitz moves toward her, brow furrowed in confusion. 

“We can bring the duffel on the quinjet.” 

“If we get separated, I need to be prepared,” Jemma says shortly. He flinches at her honesty. “I’ve been doing this for a long time, Fitz.” 

Skye curses under her breath. “They’re here. We’re going to have to fight our way through.” 

Jemma nods resolutely. Skye offers her an ICER and Jemma laughs. “I’ve got these,” she says, wiggling her fingers. “Thanks, though.” 

Fitz takes a shaky breath, taking out his own gun and exchanging a weighted glance with Skye. “We’ve got to stay with her at all times.” 

Jemma immediately protests. “No, I can handle this. You two need to get out as quickly as you can. If we get separated, I’ll let you know my location as soon as possible. It’ll probably take a couple of days to shake them and get my hands on a new phone.” 

“Jemma—“ 

“Fitz, we’re not discussing it.” 

His face practically crumbles at her words. The fear in his eyes at the thought of losing her, again, is palpable, and she’s sure there’s a similar expression of pain in her own. 

The sound of agents and gunfire approaches rapidly and Skye stands near the door. “Ready?” 

Both Fitz and Jemma nod, so she swings the door open and enters the hallway with her weapon drawn. Jemma takes a moment to admire the girl’s obvious skill as she takes down two agents immediately. Fitz quickly follows Skye; his marksmanship has significantly less precision but he holds his own.

A Hydra agent approaches behind him and Jemma throws a hand up to blow him back into the wall. The impact knocks him out cold and Jemma grabs Fitz, pulling him forward toward the stairwell. 

“Come on, we’re getting you out of here.” 

“I don’t need to be rescued!” Fitz exclaims angrily. 

“Yes you do,” Jemma bites back. “I need you safe.” 

They run down the stairs, halting on each landing to do a quick check around the corners before proceeding. They’re almost successful in their escape, until the door to safety swings open to reveal five heavily armed Hydra agents. Fitz manages to shoot one, but the space in the stairwell is extremely cramped with so many people. 

They’re vastly outnumbered, and Jemma knows it. There’s not enough space for her to create enough force to gust anyone. Even if she did, their bodies wouldn’t gain enough speed to cause significant damage when hitting against a wall. 

She has to do it. It’s something she’s had to do a few times, and it’s one of the parts of her abilities that she hadn’t disclosed to Fitz last night. Jemma has never spoken it out loud, even to herself when she’s stared at herself with trembling lips in a gas station bathroom after the very first time. It’s something she still hasn’t quite wrapped her mind around and she’s not sure she ever will. 

This is why she’s being hunted. Not because she can make drops of water dance in midair or push people away without touching them—it is for this deadly skill.

When a Hydra agent lands a resounding punch on Fitz’s jaw and brings his gun to point right between his eyes, Jemma makes the call. Raising her hands to the agent, she focuses on the oxygen in his body and, one by one, removes each molecule. 

The agent stumbles back, choking, and his comrades halt in their motions to watch in sick fascination. Fitz leans against the stairwell, panting and holding his hand to his bleeding face. One of the other Hydra agents snaps out of his trance and brandishes his weapon toward her, so she quickly moves one hand toward him and focuses on the same. Fitz raises his ICER with shaky hands and fires several bullets into the three remaining agents. 

She wishes that the second agent hadn’t done that, hadn’t torn her concentration. It’s only going to take longer to remove the oxygen from their lungs, longer for them to suffocate and she doesn’t want this to be painful but she needs Fitz to live. 

She has long ago learned how to do what she needs to do in order to survive. She won’t survive if he doesn’t. 

“Jemma, stop!” Fitz shouts. “You’re killing them.” 

Her eyes snap to him and he looks more afraid than he had before, but this time it’s different. He’s not afraid for her. He’s afraid of her, and she should have seen this coming a thousand miles away. 

She can’t give the oxygen back, but she jerks her hands back at her sides as they agents slump to the ground. They’re both unconscious, and there’s a very good chance that they are dead or will be dead soon. Jemma wishes she could say that it doesn’t matter which, that she’s become accustomed to this, but it’s not the case. Two small parts of her have just torn off and blown away. With the way that Fitz is looking at her, equal parts horror and devastation, she thinks it might be even more than that. 

The door to the stairwell opens again and she spins, hands at the ready. 

Fitz wasn’t lying; Phil Coulson stands before her, Melinda May at his side with guns drawn. 

“They’re coming,” May barks. “We need to move.” 

Fitz shakily steps over the downed bodies littering the stairwell and Jemma makes do the same. Suddenly, one of the agents shoots out a hand and grabs her ankle. A desperate, gasping sound comes from his lips and she ignores Coulson’s order to move quickly. 

Jemma bends down, kneeling beside him and looking the man in the eyes. She wonders if he has a family, if he understood who he was working for. She won’t get those answers from him now. His eyes are those of an animal dying in a trap, a wounded deer before it falls. She gulps heavily, holding her own breath as his chest stutters and heaves for a breath. 

A hand on her shoulder startles her. The Cavalry stares down at her, stoic and empathetic. 

“Put him down.” 

Jemma raises her hand and lays it on the front of his tact vest, closing her eyes and drawing out the remaining oxygen as quickly as she can. His fingers tighten around her ankle just before his body completely stills and she feels a sharp pain. 

“Agh!” she gasps, falling back and nearly landing on one of the Hydra operatives. Her hands move to her ankle, rolling up the tight spandex covering. 

“It’s a tracker,” May observes. She hauls Jemma to her feet and shoves her through the open door into the cloudy day. “Fitz, you need to figure out what this is and disable it.” 

Fitz shakes himself and pulls a device from his belt, bending near Jemma’s feet. May and Coulson keep a careful watch on them, covering Fitz and Jemma with their weapons drawn. 

The device beeps several times before it makes one long, shrill screech and releases a bright spark. “Bloody hell. This tracker, I’ve never seen one like it.” 

He squints at the small screen on the scanner. “The composition is—if we try to remove this, it’ll poison her. It has a cyanide core, cased in titanium. The mechanics of it—the only way to disable it would be to get to the core and I can’t do that without bursting the cyanide.” 

Coulson and May exchange a heavy glance. Fitz looks between them, lips parted as his breathing grows ragged. 

“No. No, we’re not leaving her here.” 

“You have to,” Jemma tells him. He moves forward, grasping her face. 

“No. No, I’m not losing you again. We’ll figure out how to disable this on the plane.” 

“They’ll have shot us out of the sky by then,” May reminds him. “If Hydra finds our base, SHIELD will be destroyed entirely.” 

Coulson nods grimly. “We don’t have the resources or man power to hold off an attack of that size.” 

Jemma clears her throat to rid it of the tears that want to build. “Fitz, I’ll be alright. I can do this.” 

“They have a tracker in you now,” he says, panic rising as his voice raises. “You can’t shake them.” 

“I’ll just have to be faster,” she tries to tease. It falls flat and she can’t bring her lips to a smile. 

“I’ll come with you,” he begs desperately. “We’ll figure out how to disable it while we run. Then I’ll bring you back with me.” 

She shakes her head. “Fitz, we both know that won’t work.” 

“Why?” he croaks. “Why not?” 

She smiles at him sadly, stepping further into him to place a lingering kiss on his lips. “Goodbye Fitz.” 

He blinks slowly, comprehension dawning on his face as Coulson grabs him from behind and begins to pull him back. 

“No!” he yells. “NO! JEMMA!” 

She can’t bear to look at him again. The anguish in his screams are already more than she can take. Her gaze lands instead on Agent May, whose eyes reflect the same regret and apology that they had on the day she’d been pulled from the rublle in Sci Tech. 

Skye comes sprinting out of the stairwell, a handsome dark skinned agent at her side. They both look around wildly, trying to place the reason for Fitz’s screaming. Skye’s eyes settle on Jemma, brow furrowed and head tilting to the side in confusion. 

The entire situation is so distracting that nobody notices the man approaching, assault weapon on his shoulder. A shot rings out and Fitz’s screaming grows louder. 

Jemma creates a gust powerful enough to stop the bullet in its place before she steps to the side and lets it continue its path. It embeds in the agent approaching behind her and he falls. 

The man with the gun shoots twice more before Jemma realizes that she can’t keep stopping the bullets. Fitz is being dragged away by the combined efforts of Coulson and the other male SHIELD agent while May and Skye resort to fighting off incoming Hydra agents with their bare hands. They are soon joined by a tall blonde woman with an extremely precise command of a pair of batons and a shorter man who shouts out to her in an English accent. 

Jemma raises both hands and commits all of her focus to removing the oxygen molecules from the man with the gun as he aims it at Skye. He falls to his knees immediately, hands raising to his throat as the gun drops to the floor. This time, it doesn’t take very long and Jemma has no doubt in her mind that he is dead. 

Skye gapes at her before May pushes her forward to run for the quinjet. 

Jemma turns and runs in the opposite direction. She can still hear Fitz screaming. 

*** 

Trip doesn’t let go of Fitz until the plane is off of the ground, and as soon as he does, the engineer wildly lashes out, punching the wall of the jet. 

“What the hell?!” he shouts at Coulson, stepping up to the Director aggressively. 

“We can’t risk having her on our plane or our base as long as that tracker is inside of her,” Coulson explains. His voice is even but hard, indicating that he will not accept a challenge to his decision. “We had to make the hard call. I’m sorry about your friend, Agent Fitz, but there was nothing we could do. What we can do is make sure that Hydra doesn’t get to her before we figure out how to disable that tracker.” 

Fitz collapses into a seat and puts his head in his hands. Skye places a gentle hand on his back, rubbing his shoulders. 

“Sir, are we sure she isn’t a threat to us?” Mack asks. Fitz’s head snaps up and he stares at the other man in disbelief. 

“What the hell does that mean?” Fitz snaps. 

“I was on the plane,” Mack says, raising his hands in defense, “but I saw what she did to those Hydra agents on the security feed. That woman is a weapon.” 

“She never would have done that if she had another choice!” Fitz shouts, standing up once again. Skye leaps up to push him back into his seat. 

“We don’t know the extent of her powers,” Skye says in an attempt to placate both men. “Fitz probably has more information than I do.” 

“She can manipulate oxygen molecules,” Fitz explains through gritted teeth. Hunter lets out a bark of laughter. 

“Sorry. Not funny, I know, just seems like she really coulda come in handy when you were trapped in that box.” 

Fitz would probably laugh if the situation was less dire. “I’m not sure all of what she can do, but I know that she can control water in all forms, she can create gusts of strong wind, small tornados—she can use her palms like thrusters, at least if she’s already falling.” 

“And she can take the oxygen right out of someone’s body,” Mack finishes. “I know she means a lot to you, Fitz, but if she’s dangerous—“ 

“She’s not dangerous!” Fitz explodes. “She’s trying to survive.” 

“Simmons didn’t attack a single SHIELD agent,” Coulson interrupts. “Technically, she is a SHIELD agent. She attended our Academy and she was stationed at SciOps. Until she directly threatens a SHIELD agent, we won’t consider her a threat.” 

“Sir—“ 

Coulson holds up a hand to Mack. “Your objection is noted, but for now, I’m going to ignore it.” 

Coulson walks to the cockpit, closing the door and cutting him and May off from the rest of the team. Fitz glares at Mack as hard as he possibly can for several long moments before he barks at Skye to hand him a tablet. He grabs his scanner and plugs it in to a port on the side of the tablet, uploading the scan of the tracker in Jemma’s ankle. 

Bobbi approaches and crowds over the tablet from Fitz’s other side. “That’s cyanide.” 

Trip and Mack exchange a look as they stare at Bobbi in confusion. Hunter sits down and scratches at his neck. 

“Bob was a biochemist,” Hunter says.

“Exactly, it’s cyanide. A lethal dose that would kill her in seconds if released. And this right here,” Fitz explains, pointing to a small piece in the mechanics, “is what we need to break to deactivate the tracking capabilities.” 

“But if you do that, it’ll burst the cyanide,” Bobbi finishes. Fitz nods and runs his hands through his hair, standing to pace. 

“Yes. She managed to run for a long time but now they’ll know exactly where she is, at all times.” 

“They may have her already,” Skye admits grudgingly. She rummages in a bag for her laptop and pulls it out, typing quickly. “I wonder if I can hack into whatever system they’re using to track her. Hydra keeps most things in paper but a tracker would be useless to them without GPS software.” 

“You’re a genius,” Fitz breathes. “We’ll at least know where to find her to extract her.” 

Skye types rapidly, grabbing Fitz’s scanner and attaching it to her laptop to upload the data. She clicks around for a while as Fitz paces in front of her, hands on his hips. Mack and Bobbi argue quietly while Hunter and Trip go over some mission details regarding Ward’s whereabouts. 

“I think I’ve got it,” Skye announces. She turns the laptop to face the rest of the team. “It looks like they haven’t caught up with her yet. They probably expected her to go toward Seattle, but it seems like she took off into the forest.” 

“Why would they bother trying Seattle?” Trip asks. “They obviously know where she is.” 

“If she stays in the trees they’ll have to go on foot,” Bobbi observes, nodding in appreciation. “Smart girl. They can’t get her by chopper or even by car. At best they could swing a motorcycle through there, but the trees are thick and it’s a protected area. They’ll know where she is but they’ll have to catch her first.” 

“This is a crazy thought, but hear me out,” Hunter says, leaning forward on his elbows. “Would the cyanide capsule explode if she cut off her ankle?” 

All of his teammates make various noises of disgust and Fitz goes vaguely green. 

“Most likely,” Bobbi answers when she realizes Fitz won’t. “If we can work a way out of this without an amputation, that would be ideal.” 

“If I could get Jemma in a lab, I’m sure she could create a—a vaccine of some kind, to counteract the chemical effects of cyanide.” 

“Wait,” Bobbi says. “Jemma can manipulate and control oxygen, yes?” 

Fitz nods, waving at her impatiently to continue. 

“Cyanide poisoning is a form of histotoxic hypoxia, isn’t it? So if that’s the case, then she should be able to fight it off.” 

“In English, please,” Hunter interjects, shaking his head in puzzlement. 

“Basically cyanide limits your body’s ability to transfer oxygen in your blood and cells. You suffocate internally. But if she can control oxygen, then—“ 

Fitz cuts her off. “True, but I don’t know if she can do it at a micro-level like that. What she did to those agents may have been her pulling the oxygen out of their lungs or blood, but it also could have been removing the oxygen from the air directly around them. We have no way of knowing.” 

“There are antidotes for cyanide, aren’t there?” Skye asks. “Not to state the obvious, but couldn’t we just remove the tracker and immediately give her something to reverse the poison?” 

“In theory, but my scanner doesn’t have the best biometric abilities. There’s a chance it’s a compounded poison of some kind. Our best bet to get the tracker out is to disable the actual mechanics. If we can make sure that capsule doesn’t get punctured, then it’s a non-issue what’s in it.” 

Bobbi narrows her eyes at the laptop screen. “She’s moving really fast toward the forest. Tiger Mountain Forest is eleven miles away from the Falls, there’s no way she’d be there already unless she was in a car or on a motorcycle.” 

Fitz snorts. “A car, maybe. Jemma would never ride a motorbike.” 

“How well do you really know her anymore?” Mack questions. Fitz huffs and crosses his arms. 

“Your oldest friend. How long did you know them?” 

Mack stiffens up a little bit. “Bobbi is my oldest friend. We’ve known each other six years now.” 

Fitz smirks a little bit, in the cocky kind of way that he hasn’t since Ward dropped him in the ocean. “Right, okay. Well Jemma and I had been partners for eight years. From 7 a.m. until I fell asleep at night, she was by my side. And the one time she wasn’t, the only time in eight years we worked in separate labs, she got blown up. I thought she was dead. Now, Bobbi here is an Ops agent, so I’m sure you weren’t always in constant contact for those six years. Did you still know her? When she came back?” 

Skye whistles under her breath and gives him a proud little smile. Trip is grinning, hiding his smile behind his hand, and Bobbi just outright laughs. 

“That’s true. We went nearly two years without speaking, and you never questioned my intentions.” 

“That was different,” Mack attempts. 

“Coulson was right,” Skye interjects. “She didn’t try to hurt any of us at all. She saved our asses, as a matter of fact, and Fitz wouldn’t have gotten out of that stairwell without her. We’ve all done some pretty terrible things to save the people we care about. Simmons just didn’t need a gun to do it.” 

“She’s a SHIELD agent,” Bobbi agrees. “She did her time with us and we failed her by not recognizing Hydra in that facility.” 

“Skye, can you get in to the records for that facility?” Mack asks. Everyone turns to stare at him. “We need to know what they know about her. If they know exactly what she can do, they might not have used straight cyanide, but if they don’t, she may not even need us to save her. She might just need a lift.” 

Fitz nods gratefully toward the other man. Despite their current opposition to one another, they’d been rather friendly in the rebuilding of SHIELD. Fitz would hate to lose that, but saving Jemma isn’t an argument he’s willing to back down on. 

“I can’t do it with this laptop,” Skye says sadly. “I need the comms room at the Playground.” 

“Good thing we’ll be there in twenty minutes,” Coulson interrupts. The entire team jumps in surprise and he grins from his place in the doorway of the cockpit. “Amazing how well you kids work together when I leave you to your own devices.” 

The team sits in relative silence with the occasional typical post-mission talk, but Fitz sits anxiously in his seat, knee bouncing as he stares at a photo of he and Jemma that she’d taken the night before she disappeared. They’re sitting in their favorite bar, cheeks pressed together in a selfie. They had just finally gotten the mechanics of the Night Night gun right; the next morning, Jemma would head to the biology lab to use some specialized equipment that would allow her to suspend the dendrotoxin in the capsule. 

The next morning, a nameless Agent would pull him from his and Jemma’s lab, sirens blaring, to tell him she was dead. 

Hunter moves to sit near him, reaching out a hand to still Fitz’s leg. 

“I’m with you on this,” the man says quietly. His eyes drift to Bobbi, sitting between Trip and Mack and laughing at one of Trip’s stories. “I know what it’s like to love someone that not everyone can understand.” 

Fitz follows his gaze and turns back to his teammate. He nods in gratitude. “Thanks, Hunter. I just really want to get back in the lab so that we can figure this out.” 

“Can’t say I’ll be of much help on this one. But if you need some backup with guns, I’ve got you.” 

Fitz rolls his eyes. “I wouldn’t let you within twenty feet of my equipment.” 

Hunter winks. “You’d love if I was that close to your equipment.” 

“She’s in the forest,” Skye announces suddenly. Throughout the rest of the flight, her eyes had remained on the laptop. “She’s pretty deep in now. It’ll be really hard for them to find her in there.” 

Trip looks at Fitz teasingly. “You better watch out, man. Once we get your girl back we may not let her go back to the lab. We could use someone like her in Ops.” 

Fitz scoffs out a laugh. “Just wait till you see her try to lie. She’s basically one giant tell.” 

“Their field exam results were abysmal,” Coulson adds. “He and Simmons took it just before they were assigned to SciOps.” 

“Simmons is afraid of heights!” Fitz defends. “They made us repel down a building and she panicked. I wouldn’t go without her so the fake bomb detonated before we got far enough down.” 

Skye coos. “Aww, Dr. Fitzy! The cactus has a heart after all!” 

He grumbles to himself, remembering the day clearly in his mind’s eye. It had been one of the first times he’d thought Jemma might possibly think he was more than just her best friend. The way she had clung to him and how she’d been so clingy for days afterward had given him hope.

Then she’d gone on a date with some tool named Chad from Ops. 

Fitz really, really hated Chad. 

“Fucking Chad,” he mumbles. His teammates all turn to stare at him and he realizes that he said it out loud. “Sorry.” 

“We have a hit on Ward,” Skye says, relieving him of the embarrassing explanation required for his statement. “He was spotted on a security camera at a grocery store in Seattle. My guess is that they’re waiting her out. All she has is a backpack full of clothes, so they’re probably hoping she makes her way back into the city for food and shelter.” 

Fitz’s stomach twists when he thinks about Jemma, alone in a pitch black and cold forest, sleeping in 30 minute shifts wherever she can. It’s October in Washington, and it’s not exactly warm outside. He’s not sure what the indigenous species are, but he hopes that none of them are dangerous. 

May lands the plane at the Playground and everyone gathers their belongings. As Fitz walks down the ramp, Skye grabs onto his arm to stop him. She looks earnestly into his eyes. 

“We’re going to get her back, Fitz.” 

The confidence of her statement bolsters his own, and he heads straight for the lab. They’ll get her back, but every second counts. He’s not about to waste a single one of them.


	4. if you could only see (the beast you made of me)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The SHIELD team races to solve the tracker problem while Jemma tries to evade Hydra by any means necessary.

Jemma has hardly stopped running in days. Her muscles burn and ache with the exertion. The scent of honey and vanilla has long since faded from her hair and her arms are marred with scrapes from a particularly awful tumble.

 

Her increased metabolism allows her to run faster than she’d been previously able, and this gives her something of an advantage over the Hydra lackeys pursuing her. She also has the advantage of not needing tact vests, helmets, and heavy weaponry.

 

She’s faster and slimmer than they are, but that doesn’t mean she can escape them forever. They know exactly where she is, and if she weren’t so deep into a heavily wooded area, they could have had her surrounded on Day One. She plans as strategically as possible, stopping at streams for short periods of time to gulp down as much water as she can and then moving forward. She climbs up high into trees to rest, but she can’t truly sleep or she’ll fall out.

 

“Alright, Fitz,” she murmurs to herself as she stands with her back to a large tree trunk, hiding her body. “I know you’re not giving up, so I won’t either.”

 

She shuts her eyes for a few brief moments, panting. Steeling herself, she gets ready to sprint once more as she hears an approaching voice.

 

“She’s around here somewhere,” the man barks out. “We keep going until we get her.”

 

“Sir, I don’t know that we can. Once we catch her, she can—“

 

“She’s a little girl,” he growls. Jemma smirks slightly, amused by the agent’s underestimation. She’s been counting on that. She waits until they’ve gotten close enough. Setting her jaw, she steps out from behind the tree just as the long line of agents reaches it.

 

Jemma raises both hands and creates such a strong gust that it flattens several of the giant pine trees in the area. The men go flying backward in various directions. Ordinarily she doesn’t revel in the sound of bodies hitting the ground, but today she makes an exception. It takes great concentration, but she leaves the leader as the last man standing.

 

“Looks like this little girl just kicked your ass,” she bites out. The leader raises his gun at her, gobsmacked and furious. With a quick twist of her wrist, the weapon is blown from his hand.

 

And then she runs.

 

***

 

Back at the Playground, Skye is practically rolling on the floor laughing. Even Fitz, who has been excessively broody and surly since they left Jemma behind in Washington, is grinning.

 

Skye hacked Hydra’s comm systems, and while they can’t see Jemma, they can at least hear what her enemies are doing. On one monitor, Jemma’s location flashes as a blue dot on a map of the Tiger Mountain Forest.

 

Today is the first time they’ve actually heard her voice, and Fitz had immediately straightened up from where he was fiddling with a mockup of the tracker. Her snarky comment to the Hydra agent puffed him up with pride at his best friend and filled him with an immediate sense of relief.

 

She was alive, and at least well enough to be antagonizing her hunters.

 

“Your girl would survive the Hunger Games,” Skye says through her laughter. “Seriously. She’s a badass.”

 

“You should see her in a lab,” Fitz tells her as he returns to the task at hand. “She’s probably, technically, smarter than me. But that’s just cause she likes homework more than life itself.”

 

Skye snorts. “Hard to imagine anyone else being smarter than you. Can she actually understand all of your technobabble nonsense?”

 

Fitz nods, eyes downcast at the project on his desk. “’S not her discipline but she kept up.”

 

Skye halts what she’s doing to spin and look at him. “You still do that.”

 

“Do what?” Fitz asks, finally dragging his eyes up from the fake tracker.

 

“Talk about her in the past tense. Like she’s…dead.”

 

His lips press together in a thin line and Skye feels a wave of guilt crash over her. She shouldn’t have said anything. “Wow. Yeah, guess I do. Old habits.”

 

“Her accident was how long before the Bus?”

 

“28 months,” Fitz responds exactly. “Nearly to the day.”

 

Skye lets out a low whistle. She notices that he doesn’t count it in years, but in months instead, as if time moved differently without her. “That’s a long time to think your best friend is dead.”

 

Fitz snorts. “Yeah. It was. I can’t believe May never told me.”

 

Skye licks her lips and adjusts in her seat. “I’m sure she had her reasons, Fitz.”

 

“Whatever those reasons were, they’re not gonna be good enough for me,” Fitz replies, stubborn edge to his words. His bad hand starts to tremble and he curses, squeezing it into a fist and releasing it several times.

 

“Sorry,” Skye winces.

 

He shakes his head. “It’s fine. I’ve just been overworking it, trying to figure this bloody thing out.”

 

Skye stands to squeeze his shoulder sympathetically. He’s reminded painfully of how his imaginary version of Jemma used to do the same. He wonders if real Jemma will, when he gets her back.

 

“You need to rest. She’s holding her own.”

 

“For now,” he snaps, shaking her hand off. “Every minute is another minute of Jemma being hunted. We have no idea what they’ll do when they catch her.”

 

Skye looks at him with wide eyes, stepping back. “I might have an idea.”

 

“For the tracker?” Fitz asks eagerly. “Can you disable it remotely?”

 

She shakes her head, watching his face melt into disappointment. “You’re not going to like my plan, but I need you to hear me out.”

 

“Just get to it, Skye,” he huffs, frustrated and increasingly nervous.

 

“We let her get caught,” Skye rushes. His hands instantly clench into fists on the table and she continues on as quickly as she can. “Once she’s in a facility, they’ll remove the tracker. We’ll know where the facility is and we can extract her.”

 

“Last time Hydra had her in a facility, they…”

 

He trails off. He’s not actually sure what Hydra did to her in that facility. She’d not gone into specifics on it. All he knows is that it had been so bad that she’d been afraid of him. That’s all he needs to instantly reject Skye’s plan.

 

“That’s not an option, Skye.”

 

She looks a bit crestfallen that he’s so harshly turned down her idea, but he thinks she must have suspected that he would. “Fine. I won’t run it by Coulson.”

 

“Please don’t,” Fitz begs. “He’ll approve that and you know it. I just—I just need a few more hours. I’m getting close.”

 

Skye nods acquiescence. “Fine, but if it takes much longer—“

 

“She’ll be caught anyway, I know,” Fitz says brusquely. “I know.”

 

Skye lowers herself back into her chair, plugging in some headphones to the Hydra comms feed so that Fitz won’t be distracted by it.

 

***

 

In retrospect, she probably shouldn’t have pissed them off. There’s a chance that they have a good enough lay of the land that they could send another team from another direction and cut her off. At this point, they definitely have a better idea of where they are than she does. Unlike Hydra, Jemma is in possession of no high-tech gadgets that will tell her anything about this forest. She’s operating purely on survival instincts.

 

Luckily for her, they’re pretty well-honed ever since her first escape from Hydra. There’s just the smallest part of her that whispers to her that she won’t survive another stint in one of those horrible facilities.

 

She’d been doing just fine outrunning them, till The Big Bad made that comment about her being _just a little girl._

 

Getting your first PhD as a 14 year-old girl really teaches you a thing or two about sexism, especially when your field is so male-dominated. If she had a penny for every time a man less educated than herself who’d called her “sweetheart” during her academic presentations or deferred their questions to Fitz first even when the question had nothing to do with engineering, she’d be an incredibly wealthy woman.

 

Something about the way he’d written her off that way left her blood boiling. It was like every time a superior officer called her “honey” but referred to Fitz as “Agent Fitz.” It was like every time she’d been told that little girls shouldn’t be tramping through the mud looking for specimen.

 

Honestly? It had pissed her off.

 

She’d lost control, and she knows now that she’ll surely be paying for it. She should have done that earlier. At this point, she’s so exhausted that she needs to stop, at least for a few minutes.

 

She practically collapses against a large mossy rock, scrambling over it and leaning her head back. She pants, the breath stinging her lungs.

 

Loud footsteps approach and she winces, shutting her eyes as tight as she can.

 

“He wants her alive,” the man says. “You can injure her but nothing fatal. If you shoot her once, you stop.”

 

Jemma grits her teeth as hard as she can bear. She has to do this. She can’t go back with Hydra, she won’t survive it. And for the first time in a long time she has something to fight for other than herself.

 

She slowly unfurls her fists and vigorously rubs her hands together. Her eyes dart to the path nearby, covered in dry pine needles. This is a gorgeous forest, and in another life she might have loved to study the ecosystem here. She and Fitz had always enjoyed taking long walks in the countryside when they visited his mother—she could see them quite liking it here too.

 

It’s really a shame that she has to burn it down.

 

Using the friction between her hands, she focuses on creating a burst of oxygen that ignites the floor beneath her. Her hand press out, sweeping up the fire in a heavy gust that quadruples the flames in seconds.

 

“Fire!” an agent yells. One more push of heavy winds and the fire builds to a roar. It begins to crawl up some of the larger trees and she spins around, looking for a way out.

 

There are agents running toward her from one side and fire on the other. The panic begins to build in her.

 

“What do I do, Fitz?” she murmurs. “What do I do?”

 

She recalls the look on his face when she’d killed those Hydra agents in the stairwell. The smoke from the fire starts to scorch the inside of her throat. She doesn’t have much longer.

 

“I’m sorry, Fitz,” she whispers. She lifts her hands at the incoming agents. She won’t have the time or the focus to remove the oxygen directly from their bodies, so she’ll have to remove it from the surrounding area. It’ll also prevent the fire from spreading and overtaking her when she runs.

 

Jemma does her best to redirect the oxygen from the air around the agents and into her own lungs as they get closer and closer to her. The last thing she needs is to suffocate, and unfortunately, she still hasn’t figured out how to control the oxygen molecules within her own body. Hydra had certainly tried their best, though.

 

The Hydra agents begin to fall like dominos. One by one, they collapse to their knees. Behind their masks she can see the panic rising in their eyes. It’s a less precise process then when she can localize the deoxygenation, and it’s gorier as well. A brief flash in her mind’s eye reminds her that Fitz was once trapped at the bottom of the ocean, running out of oxygen and trying to give what remained to her ghost.

 

She wonders if he looked like this. Suddenly they all look like him. All of the pairs of desperate eyes staring back at her turn cobalt blue, unforgiving and accusatory.

 

Jemma clenches her eyes shut as tightly as she can to block it out. If she has any chance of living past the next ten minutes, she has to do this.

 

When she opens her eyes, ten men lay dead on the forest floor, fire blazing behind her. She gasps deeply for what little oxygen remains, hoisting her backpack up a little further onto her shoulders. Jemma’s head spins and she falters on her feet, stumbling forward a few small steps.

 

She turns around toward the flames just as a man rolls through them, extinguishing himself when he reaches the practically airless area where Jemma stands.

 

He brings himself slowly to his feet, staring at her like a predator. Her legs tremble beneath her and she totters back a few more steps.

 

“I recognize you from your picture,” he says, seemingly unaffected by the thin atmosphere.

 

“How cute, did Hydra make me a wanted poster?” Jemma manages to taunt.

 

He’s tall, with dark hair and sharp cheekbones. She’s never seen him before, and she’s come to recognize most of the agents that have been hunting her ever since she made her grand escape from their alleged medical facility.

 

He steps closer, smiling in a joyless way that sends a shiver down her spine. Her breathing becomes more and more shallow.

 

“We actually didn’t,” the man smirks. “But your picture was prominently featured in Leo Fitz’s bunk on the Bus.”

 

He raises a gun, cocking it with a small click as he aims it at her. The pieces come together with the last threads of her thoughts.

 

“You’re Ward,” Jemma cries out. “You tried to kill Fitz.”

 

“That was complicated,” Ward says placatingly, walking toward her with one hand outstretched and the gun still aiming at her with the other. “You’re going to help me make them understand, Simmons.”

 

“It’s Dr. Simmons,” she spits. “And I will never help you.”

 

He chuckles. “I see why he likes you so much. But I’m gonna need you to come with me.”

 

A gunshot rings out, a bullet tearing through her leg.

 

“AGH!” she screams, immediately hitting the ground. The fire is coming closer, illuminating Ward from behind as he bends down and scoops her up.

 

“Hey now, it’s alright. We’ll get that taken care of in no time.”

 

Then she blacks out.

 

***

 

“I’ve got it!” Fitz shouts, pumping his fists up in victory as he stands and does a small spin in front of the desk. “I’ve figured it out. We just need to get to her and it’ll take me four minutes, tops.”

 

Skye turns, headphones hanging limply from her hands. She’s not smiling or exhuberantly jumping up in celebration the way he’d expected her to.

 

“Fitz, we need to call a team meeting. Coulson needs to hear these recordings.”

 

Fitz’s mind goes completely blank, all adrenaline seeping out of him. “What’s going on?”

 

Skye gulps, running her hands over her hair and shaking her head. “Fitz, I’m so sorry.”

 

“Why?” he asks, desperate. He already knows the answer, deep down in his gut, but he needs to hear her say it.

 

“They got her,” Skye whispers. She licks her licks her bottom lip and then bites down so hard on it that she nearly draws blood. “Ward got her.”

 

Fitz reacts so quickly that Skye doesn’t even have a chance to try to talk him down. His fists slam down on the nearest counter, one hand immediately striking out and knocking over several glass containers. They shatter on the lab floor and he walks away, hands at the back of his head. His foot violently kicks out at a table and Skye rushes to stop him, wrapping her arms around his back and tugging him backward.

 

“Fitz, you need to calm down. We can still save her. It’s not over, but you’re useless to her if you can’t keep it together. If Coulson thinks you’re compromised, he’s not going to let you come for extraction.”

 

His chest heaves beneath her hands but her words seem to have their intended affect.

 

“Rewind the tape and get Coulson in here. We need to hear everything,” Fitz orders. His voice is firm and Skye swells with pride as he takes charge of the situation.

 

“Got it,” Skye complies, dashing out of the lab in search of Coulson and the rest of the team. In record time, they gather around the comms computer so that Skye can rewind the recording of the Hydra comms.

 

_“Beta Team closing in on target.”_

_“Beta Team, approach with caution. Target is extremely dangerous. We’ve been stopped by fire. Repeat, stopped by fire. You will have no backup.”_

_“Target acquired.”_

_“She’s wanted alive. Do not take a kill shot.”_

The tape breaks into a long moment of silence, the tramping of boots on the forest floor the only sound. Fitz paces back and forth, hands clamped around the back of his neck. Coulson stands with his arms crossed, brow furrowed. Beside him, May’s jaw twitches furious as her expression fights to remain neutral.

 

_“She’s doing something,” an agent chokes out._

_“Alpha Team to Beta, what is your status?”_

_“Can’t…can’t breathe…”_

_“Alpha Team to Beta, do you copy?”_

_A long beat of silence._

_“Alpha to Beta, do you copy?”_

_Another beat._

_“Beta Team has been terminated. I’m going through.”_

The last voice stalls Fitz in his movements, and May’s face crashes from carefully held together to utter fury. Coulson’s mouth drops open and he looks to his second in command for confirmation.

 

Skye, for her part, shivers as tears gather in her eyes.

 

_“I recognize you from your picture,” Ward says._

_“How cute, did Hydra make me a wanted poster?” Jemma’s voice is weak and frail, cracking on the last word._

 

_“We actually didn’t. But your picture was prominently featured in Leo Fitz’s bunk on the Bus.”_

 

_“You’re Ward. You tried to kill Fitz.” She sounds equal parts horrified and enraged._

 

_“That was complicated. You’re going to help me make them understand, Simmons.”_

 

_“It’s Dr. Simmons. And I will never help you.”_

 

_He chuckles. “I see why he likes you so much. But I’m gonna need you to come with me.”_

 

_A gunshot punctures the sound of heavy breathing. Jemma’s scream echoes through the silent lab._

_“Hey now, it’s alright. We’ll get that taken care of in no time.”_

Skye looks nervously to Fitz, expecting another outburst. Instead, he is completely still, hands shaking as he clenches and unclenches them at his sides. Coulson assumes his most authoritative stance.

 

“She’s been hit and captured,” Coulson remarks. He keeps the tone as light as possible in the circumstances.

 

“Yes,” Fitz grits out.

 

“She could be dead.”

 

“Yes!” Fitz bursts out in agitation.

 

“But we’re going to find out, aren’t we?” Coulson asks the team.

 

“Definitely,” Skye immediately responds.

 

“Hell yeah,” Bobbi affirms.

 

Mack speaks up next, and everyone looks to him in varying degress of surprise. “Absolutely.”

 

“Skye, keep eyes on that tracker. Everyone prepare yourselves to leave at any moment. As soon as it stops, we’re heading to that location for extraction.”

 

“Who are you taking, AC?” Skye asks anxiously. “I mean, sir.”

 

Coulson shoots her a look at the nickname. “I’ll take Trip, Bobbi, and Hunter with me.”

 

“I’m coming,” Fitz speaks up. “She knows I’m on the right team but she’s gotta be scared out of her mind right now. She might be unwilling to leave with anyone else. If her tracker is still in, I’ll need to disable it before we get her on the quinjet.”

 

Coulson sighs at Fitz’s logic. There’s no real way for him to refute it. “Fine. Fitz is coming too.”

 

“If Ward is there, I need to be too,” Skye argues. “I’m the only one who might be able to talk him in to giving her up. You heard him on there. He wants to use her to make us, the Bus team, understand.”

 

“I started this two years ago,” May says quietly. “I didn’t get her to my safe house fast enough and I trusted a Hydra team to take care of her. I’ll take Fitz and Skye. We’ll need Trip on the jet for possible medical support.”

 

Coulson pinches the bridge of his nose. “So what, everyone is coming? We’re just leaving our base undefended?”

 

“You can stay,” May quips. “And I don’t need Bobbi or Hunter.”

 

“Bobbi has far more experience than Skye,” Coulson contests.

 

“So bring her too!” Skye exclaims, throwing her hands up. “If any of this is even going to work, I need to have eyes on this tracker. Everyone give me some room.”

 

“Fine. Then May will be heading the mission. Skye, you’ll be there to negotiate with Ward and provide tact support. Fitz, you’ll be disabling the tracker and talking Simmons down. Trip, med support on the plane. Hunter and Bobbi, I want you both there. We’ll be outmanned and outgunned.”

 

“No objections from me,” Hunter says. “Let’s get her back.”

 

Fitz looks to him gratefully, and the other man claps him on the back.

 

“Clear out,” May announces. “Fitz, keep practicing on those trackers. You need to be able to disable it in less than a minute. Skye, keep us posted.”

 

Both Fitz and Skye nod obediently and everyone obeys May’s direction, shuffling out of the lab to prepare for the upcoming mission.

 

“What if she’s—what if they’ve already done something by the time we get there?” Fitz asks nervously. Skye swallows hard.

 

“Then we do what we need to do and we fix it. This team brought me back to life. We can do this, Fitz.”

 

His jaw sets in determination and he silently goes back to the task at hand, resetting the mock-up tracker and setting a timer. Shaking out his bad hand, he sets to work once again.

 

By the time Skye’s GPS pings, he’s got deactivation down to 47 seconds. He’d like to have it lower to account for possible distractions in the field, but 47 seconds will have to do.

 

“I’ve got a location,” Skye says, jumping up and jotting down the coordinates. “It’s…a farm in Massachusetts?”

 

Fitz snaps his fingers. “Ward grew up in Massachusetts.”

 

Skye gapes at him. “He took her to his creepy family mansion.”

 

“Let’s move,” he says, gathering all of his tools in their little pack.

 

They tear out of the lab, both of them shouting nonsense to the team. Coulson holds out a hand.

 

“Stop. Try again. Maybe just Skye this time.”

 

She gasps in a breath. “The tracker stopped moving. It’s at Ward’s family’s house in Massachusetts.”

 

May and Coulson both tense and Hunter cocks his head to the side. “I’m going to take a gander here and say that’s a bad thing?”

 

“If what we know about Ward’s background is true, then it holds a certain kind of…traumatic significance,” Coulson says carefully.

 

Hunter snorts. “Whose childhood home doesn’t have tragic significance?”

 

Skye winces. “This is a bit different.”

 

“Get on your tact gear,” Coulson orders Fitz and Skye. “Wheels up in 10.”

 

***

 

He’d bandaged her up on the plane, even removed the bullet. Ward had offered her a small flask of whiskey to dull the pain but she’d refused it. She’d always been taught to reject drinks from strangers—this was just that to an extreme.

 

The bleeding had slowed but the pain ripped through her in waves.

 

“Where’s Whitehall,” she hisses out between clenched teeth. “I assumed he’d want to get his hand on my blood as soon as possible.”

 

Ward smiles slightly. “He’s not quite ready for you yet. In the meantime, he’s allowed me to…use you for my own means.”

 

Jemma glares down at the metal gauntlets wrapped around her hands. They look almost like those belonging to a suit of armor. She’d woken with them caging her fingers and palms, biting into the skin of her wrists.

 

“We had to cut off your abilities,” Ward says in explanation as he follows her gaze. “I wasn’t quite sure that just keeping your hands away from oxygen would be enough, but I guess our scientists were smarter than I thought. They’re certainly no Fitz.”

 

“Don’t say his name,” Jemma spits.

 

Ward chuckles. “Interesting. Fitz and I grabbed a beer together one night between missions and he told me all about you. His long-dead partner that he hadn’t had the guts to tell he loved her. Said you didn’t feel the same, anyway, so there was no point in dwelling on it. But you do.”

 

Jemma’s head tilts to the side. “If you do anything to him, I’ll be useless to you.”

 

“Oh, I know that. My goal is not to hurt Fitz, Simmons. It’s to make him understand. To make Skye understand.”

 

“And what exactly do you want to make them understand? If you’re trying to redeem yourself, kidnapping me probably wasn’t your best option.”

 

“I need to make them understand that there’s a darkness in all of us,” Ward says, leaning in close to her. He ruffles her hair and she flinches away at his touch.

 

Jemma narrows her eyes. “What are you getting at?”

 

“You’ll see,” he taunts. “Just wait until we get to the well.”

 

She shuts her eyes as he turns away from her. Jemma focuses on exhaling her fear and pushes down the nausea that arises from the pain in her leg.

 

Fitz will come for her. She knows he will.


	5. all of these thousand miles (to get you back)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The SHIELD team finds Jemma and discovers how Ward plans on unleashing her dark side.

“10 minutes to landing,” Coulson announces, walking back into the main cabin of the quinjet. “Let’s review one more time. Skye will be taking point. We want Ward to encounter her first—hopefully she can talk him down and at least lure him away from Simmons’ location. Bobbi will be with her, running back-up in the event that he is not as soft to her as we suspect her is. Fitz will be accompanied by Hunter and Trip. Hunter, you’re there for Tact support. Trip, we need you on medical. In the event that you have to, provide tact support as well—but we don’t want to risk injury to you. You’re our only chance at giving her the medical attention she needs. The plan is to get to Simmons as soon as possible. If she’s injured, we treat what we need to as soon as we can. Then we get back on the plane. Ward is wanted, dead or alive.”

 

Skye lightly flinches at the words but steels herself. “Where will May be? The plane?”

 

“May and I will be prepared to do whatever may be necessary,” Coulson answers ambiguously. “Is everyone clear on their objective?”

 

“Yes, sir,” his agents chorus.

 

He nods at them. “Get ready. Saving Agent Simmons is the priority.”

 

Coulson looks to Fitz reassuringly, and Fitz nods back in gratitude at the Director’s support. He doublechecks his kit, making sure that all of the tools he needs are in proper working order. Hunter, meanwhile, secures the knife strapped to the inside of his boot, holsters his ICER, and grabs an extra round to clip to his belt. He meets Fitz’s anxious eyes and smiles.

 

“I’ll get you to her in one piece, mate. You’ve got my word.”

 

“Which doesn’t mean much,” Bobbi quips in an attempt to ease the tension. Hunter rolls his eyes and opens his mouth to fire back, but she cuts him off. “Hey, Hunter. Don’t die out there, alright?”

 

For some inexplicable reason, this sentiment softens him and Fitz is left staring between the exes wondering why the phrase was uttered and received with such affection.

 

“You too, Bob.”

 

Fitz gets up from his jump seat to talk to Trip, who kneels in front of the med kit running inventory.

 

“Have everything you need?” Fitz asks. He tries his best to sound casual but the anxiety is heavy in his words. Trip smiles reassuringly.

  
“I got it,” Trip says. Skye reaches out to fist bump him before she squeezes Fitz’s shoulder.

 

“It’s no pressure or anything, Trip,” she jokes. “Just, y’know, if anything happens to Jemma, Fitz will probably never forgive you.”

 

“That’s not true!” Fitz yelps. Then he reconsiders. “Okay I mean I guess it depends on the _anything.”_

Trip chuckles warmly, standing to meet the engineer. “Looks like I gotta eliminate every possibility then.”

 

He reaches out to fist-bump Fitz. His nerves get the better of him and rather than returning the gesture, he attempts to wrap his entire hand around Trip’s massive fist and only partially succeeds. The Ops agent bites back a smile and lets Fitz finish his rounds of checking on each and every teammate.

 

When he reaches the cockpit, he lowers himself awkwardly into the co-pilot seat, staring straight forward as May does the same.

 

“I made a mistake,” May says quietly. He can hardly hear her over the light hum of the quinjet’s engine. “I was trying to get her out and I trusted the wrong people.”

 

Fitz’s hand clutches the arm rest of his seat, knuckles white. “I don’t blame you for what happened to her. I just don’t know why you never told me she was alive.”

 

“I was following protocol,” May explains. “But I know now that it wasn’t an excuse. If I had told you, if we had gone to that facility so that you could see her, we would have known. And we could have gotten her out much earlier.”

 

Fitz grits his teeth and grudgingly accepts her reasoning. “We’re SHIELD. It’s drilled into our head to trust the system. I get that. Thinking she was gone forever almost ruined my life, though. I can’t say I’m not bitter.”

 

“It’s different now,” May corrects. “We won’t make the same mistake twice. We’re going to get her back.”

 

Over the last year, Fitz has learned that when May speaks with conviction, she means it.

 

“I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you Simmons was alive,” May says quietly. “Truly, I am. If it’s any consolation, I can say that I know how you felt.”

 

It takes a moment for Fitz to catch up, until he remembers that Phil Coulson was presumed dead for a long time as well. Fitz isn’t completely sure how far back May and Coulson go, but he’s positive that they know one another better than anyone else. Her comparison finally softens him.

 

“It’s alright. Or it will be. Once she’s safe.”

 

May nods, flicking a few switches on the panel. “Touching down in 3 minutes.”

 

He exhales a shaking breath and moves back to the main cabin, letting Coulson resume his usual spot in the cockpit with May. He straps in between Skye and Hunter, consciously forcing himself not to bounce his leg as his nerves build to a nearly unbearable level.

 

The plane touches down and the team jumps to attention. Hunter and Trip flank him on either side as the ramp lowers. They let Skye go first, Bobbi following closely behind her.

 

As soon as his boots touch down on the crunchy leaves of Massachusetts fall, Fitz _knows_ : Jemma is here somewhere. He can feel it deep down in his core, and he mumbles as much to Trip and Hunter.

 

“Grant!” Skye calls. “Grant, we know you’re here. Come out so we can talk, alright?”

 

“Like that’s gonna work,” Hunter grumbles under his breath.

 

“You’re underestimating Ward’s creep factor when it comes to Skye,” Trip informs him.

 

It takes a few minutes, but Ward walks right out of the front door of the house with a broad smile. The most chilling thing about it is how truly genuine he looks. As soon as his gaze settles on Skye, his whole face lights up.

 

“Hey! Looks like we got the whole team back together,” Ward says. Then he looks around. “Where’s May and Coulson? Prepared to take the kill shot?”

 

Skye crosses her arms defensively. “You know why we’re here. Where’s Jemma Simmons?”

 

Ward steps down off of the porch. “Skye, do you remember what I told you about my brothers?”

 

She swallows and nods. “Yeah. What do they have to do with this?”

 

“That moment,” Ward tells her, “is when I realized there was a darkness inside of me. And this entire team, this whole little _family_ that you think so highly of, they’ve all got a darkness inside of them, too.”

 

Bobbi’s hand hovers over the gun at her side, and Hunter takes a step forward, covering Fitz with his body. Ward briefly looks in their direction before turning his attention back to Skye.

 

“I needed you and Fitz to know that sometimes you don’t have a choice. I needed you to understand.”

 

“I told you before, I will _never_ understand what you did,” Skye spits. She gathers her composure, though, remembering the mission at hand. “Whatever you’ve done to Jemma, just let us fix it. She doesn’t deserve this, Ward. She has nothing to do with any of it.”

 

“But she does,” Ward insists. “Simmons and I are a lot alike. We were both changed, and taken advantage of because of it. We were forced to adapt, to use that darkness to survive. Simmons and I are both survivors. So are you. You just haven’t had to use it yet, but you will, and when you do, that’s when you’ll see.”

 

“This guy is bloody mental,” Hunter whispers. “Fitz, any hit on that tracker?”

 

Fitz glances down at his tablet. “She’s behind the house.”

 

Skye exchanges a look with Bobbi and nods. Bobbi shoots several ICER bullets at Ward, which he manages to dodge with relative ease. Skye draws her own weapon, and Hunter uses the diversion to drag Fitz forward. Fitz, Trip, and Hunter run around the side of the house, Fitz watching his tablet.

 

“Fitz!” Jemma shouts in relief as soon as she sees him. He drops his tablet to the floor and sprints, falling to his knees in front of her. He grabs her face, looking her over desperately.

 

“Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

 

She shakes her head. “No. Well, yeah, he shot me in the leg. It didn’t hit bone or any major arteries, and he treated the wound. But Fitz, you need to get these off of me.”

 

He finally takes notice of the contraptions on her hands, locked together with a chain. Her wrists are bruising at the cuffs of the gauntlets and he glares at them as though personally offended by their existence.

 

“We’ll get them off on the plane,” he assures her. “I need to deal with your tracker first, alright?”

 

“No, Fitz,” Jemma says desperately. “We need to get these off first. Everyone here is in danger.”

 

Trip and Hunter exchange a look.

 

“I’ll stay with them,” Trip offers. “Go check on Bobbi and Skye.”

 

Hunter runs back for the front of the mansion while Trip stands guard in front of Fitz and Simmons.

 

“This might hurt,” Fitz warns. “And I need you to stay extremely still.”

 

Jemma bites her lip and nods. “Just get it over with and then get these damn things off of my hands.”

 

Fitz unfurls his kit, showing Jemma a syringe-like tool. “I have to inject this into the tracker. It’ll freeze the gears in it and—“

 

“No time for explaining,” Jemma grits out. “I’m serious, Fitz, Ward is—“

 

A loud bang sounds from the front of the house and Fitz jumps with a little shout. Jemma nearly rolls her eyes, but instead draws his attention back to the task at hand.

 

“Get it done. You can do this, I trust you.”

 

Her words still his hands and he injects the freezant into the tracker, impressed when she tenses only slightly. As soon as the gears are frozen, he’s able to attach a small device to the outside of her ankle that shows him the tracker under her skin.

 

“I’m sorry,” he grimaces. “This might really hurt.”

 

He punctures her skin with with another lengthy needle, this one with a small screwdriver tip. His eyes focus intently on the screen, his only view of what he’s doing. With a quick twist, and a small shout of pain from Jemma, the tracker is disabled. He pulls back on the tool and she bites hard on her lip to keep from making too much noise.

 

“Sorry,” he grimaces as he examines the small tracker on the end of the screwdriver. “That was the only way to get it out. Good news is, no cyanide in your system.”

 

“It’s brilliant,” she praises, before raising her hands to him. He examines the gauntets closely, nodding decisively and grabbing a small torch. He flips her wrist so that the seam of the metal faces him. The flame from the torch melts away at the seam, creating a small gap.

  
“Trip, hand me those pliers.”

 

Trip bends down and quickly tosses them to him, eyes still on the house as he crouches with his gun at the ready. Fitz pries the metal apart, giving Jemma enough room to slide out of them. Her hands are red and raw, and she hisses a breath of pain as she flexes them experimentally.

 

“Agh,” she whimpers. “Listen, Fitz, Ward has this weapon. It’s a—it’s this big staff, and it brings out the worst parts of you. He’s going to try to make me use it against you and your team.”

 

“Jemma, Jemma, slow down. That’s not—we’re just going to get you on the plane right now. Nothing is going to happen to anyone, okay?”

 

He hauls her to her feet and she stands shakily, eyes darting wildly. “Your team isn’t safe.”

 

She takes off running toward the front of the house and Trip lets out a disbelieving shout, darting after her. Fitz follows closely behind, grabbing his tools and shoving them back into their pack. He stops to grab his fallen tablet and skids to a stop at the front of the house.

 

Jemma has forced her body in front of his team, hands outstretched with a strong gust forming around her. It stops and starts erratically, her injured hands faltering as she attempts to channel her power toward them.

 

“You can’t stop this, Simmons,” Ward grins. He spins the Berserker staff deftly and makes to toss it to her. “You already knew what would happen.”

 

Fitz looks around at his team. Bobbi is on the ground, clutching at what appears to be a broken leg. Skye stands, weaponless but defiant, directly behind Jemma. Trip draws his gun and aims it for Ward’s chest. For a moment, it looks as though Ward may truly have them beat, given the alien weapon in his possession—until May grabs him from behind and flips him onto the ground.

 

“Now!” Ward gasps out. A team of Hydra agents rushes from the inside of the house. Trip grabs Fitz and pushes him toward the surrounding trees. He nearly stumbles into an open well.

 

This is The Well. The one Skye had told him about after Ward’s big Hydra reveal. The significance of this place can’t be a coincidence. He saw a memory of this well the first time he held the staff, and now his plan is to awaken a darkness in Jemma with the same weapon.

 

Fitz isn’t sure what exactly Ward wants Jemma to do, but whatever it is, it _cannot_ happen.

 

“Trip, don’t let him force that staff into Jemma’s hands,” Fitz insists, grasping onto the other man’s arms.

 

Trip nods in affirmation and then darts back into the fray.

 

“Jemma!” Fitz calls. “This way! We need to get you back onto the plane!”

 

Jemma turns, eyes meeting his as Bobbi continues to fight despite her severe injury. She looks at the blonde and back to him with a small shake of her head, raising her hands to the agents fighting Bobbi and blowing them backward. It’s a stronger blast than she intended to create, but her control of her abilities is touch and go with the injuries to her wrists and hands. Skye lets out a grunt of pain as a Hydra agents smacks her in the head with the butt of his gun. Jemma throws a hand out, knocking him off of his feet.

 

She’s so focused on protecting the injured SHIELD agents that she doesn’t see the man coming up behind her.

 

“JEMMA!” Fitz shouts. “JEMMA, LOOK OUT!”

 

Fitz runs for her but is held back by Coulson yet again. “You’re unarmed!” the director barks at him.

 

One agent holds Jemma still while another forces the staff into her hands. She screams, falling to her knees as they release her. The Hydra agents immediately retreat, but Ward kneels down in front of her, grabbing her chin with his fingers and forcing her to look at him. Ward’s fingers on Jemma’s face cause Fitz’s stomach to turn over.

 

“There she is,” he murmurs. “How are you feeling?”

 

The pure rage that vibrates inside of her is like nothing she’s ever felt before. Her mind goes completely blank, the impulse to destroy surging through her as she slowly staggers to her feet.

 

“Let me go!” Fitz begs Coulson. “Let me go, I can get her back. I can do this.”

 

“Fitz—“

 

“It worked for Skye and Ward!” Fitz reminds him desperately. “Please!”

 

Coulson sighs, shaking his head in frustration and releasing his engineer. He presses a pistol into his hand. “You can only do this if you’re willing to take the shot if it means saving the rest of your team.”

 

Fitz nods solemnly, but he knows it’s a lie and he can see that Coulson knows it, too. Regardless, Coulson lets him run out into the clearing just as Jemma shifts the staff into one hand, raising her other toward Trip.

 

Fitz flings himself in front of his teammate and Jemma’s hand falters in front of her.

 

“Jemma. Jemma, it’s me,” Fitz says loudly. “Drop the staff. If you let go of it, all of that anger will go away. The longer you hold onto it, the longer it’s going to last.”

 

“It hurts,” she whimpers. Her voice breaks on the words and he feels a part of him shatter at the sound. The air starts to feel a little thin in the surrounding area as she removes oxygen molecules, and his teammates move backward. Hunter wraps Bobbi’s arm around his shoulders and drags her away from the center of the fight.

 

“I know it does,” he says sympathetically. He sucks in a breath, fighting off the flashback to the pod that threatens to overwhelm him. “Jemma, I need you to let go of the staff. I can’t breathe.”

 

Beneath the fury in her eyes, a bit of fear begins to form. “I can’t—I can’t—“

 

“Jemma,” Fitz pleads, urging him to look him in the eyes. “Jemma, I can’t breathe while you’re doing that. I need you to stop.”

 

“Go!” she shouts. “Fitz, go!”

 

He shakes his head a little sadly. “You know I can’t do that, Jemma. Together or not at all.”

 

She gasps out a rasping sob and focuses all of her efforts on dropping the staff from her other hand. Fitz vaguely registers May subduing Ward behind Jemma, but his eyes remain focused on his former partner. The rest of his energy goes toward breathing, even as it becomes more and more difficult to do. Darkness starts to encroach on his vision and his head swims dangerously as he sways on his feet.

 

“Pull him back!” Trip shouts to Skye. “She’s going to kill him.”

 

“NO!” Jemma screams. She throws the staff away from herself forcefully and it lands on the soft earth with only the dullest of thuds. Her other hand lowers back to her side and Fitz collapses to his knees, palms grasping at the ground. He pants erratically and Jemma rushes for him.

 

“Jemma,” he croaks. “You’re okay.”

 

“Stop,” she interrupts, tears in her voice. “I could have—I almost—“

 

“You didn’t,” a calm voice cuts her off. A warm hand rubs her back as Phil Coulson kneels beside her. “We need to get him some oxygen. That’s on the plane.”

 

Jemma shakes her head. “I can fix this. Fitz, I need you to lean back, okay? Hold him up.”

 

Trip sits behind Fitz, pulling him against his chest as Jemma’s hands fall along his ribs. She shuts her eyes and focuses. Fitz takes in a deep, shuddering breath, and then another. Jemma’s own breathing becomes progressively more shallow, but she continues on until she’s pleased with the color of his skin again.

 

“Better?” she asks him.

 

“Did you just give him your oxygen?”

 

Jemma nods. “There wasn’t enough in the air. I’m alright, though.”

 

Coulson glances at her with cautious respect and orders her and Trip to get Fitz back on the quinjet.

 

“Skye, can you handle containing this 084?”

 

Skye licks her lips and nods, shrugging off her jacket to protect herself as she goes to grab it from the ground. It’s another 30 minutes until they’re back in the air, Ward handcuffed in their cargo hold and the Berserker staff locked up in a crate. It’s not until they land at the Playground that Fitz really, truly feels that he can breathe again.

 

Jemma looks at him nervously as they step out onto the base. He grasps her injured hand loosely in his and she steps closer, following him off of the plane.

 

***

 

Fitz is tasked with doing the basics of Jemma’s intake. Her debrief with Coulson had been done on the plane, and Bobbi is their only other qualified scientist. Unfortunately she’s currently occupied with having her leg reset by Trip while Hunter hovers anxiously by her side. He does a quick body scan with one of the DWARFS, and as soon as it starts to fly around her, she smiles.

 

“Doc!” she exclaims happily. She reaches out a hand and the little robot lands in her palm. “I know that he’s just mechanics but it’s like he remembers me.”

 

“He does,” Fitz smiles softly. “It looks like the abrasions on your hands are just at the surface. You’re suffering from some minor nutritional deficiencies and, believe it or not, your blood oxygen is low. We’ll give you a quick treatment and an IV and you should be right as rain.”

 

She nods tiredly, leaning back on her hands from her seat on the counter. “It’ll be nice to lie down.”

 

He squeezes her leg and shuffles around her, searching for the proper equipment. “As soon as we’ve got you treated, I’ll set you up in an empty bunk. You’ll like these better than the Bus. The Bus bunks were tiny—“

 

“Are you sure they won’t want to…detain me?” she asks cautiously. His head snaps toward her.

 

“Why would they do that?”

 

“I nearly killed you, Fitz,” she whispers, eyes glued studiously to the floor. “I’m dangerous.”

 

“Hey,” he says firmly, moving in front of her. “That wasn’t you, alright? You never woulda done that—“

 

“But I _can_ do that, Fitz,” she says heatedly. “And I _have._ More than once. I may have to do so it again at some point.”

 

Fitz snorts. “Jemma, these people are SHIELD agents. Do you think none of them have taken anyone out before?”

 

“You haven’t,” she bites back. He swallows and shakes his head.

 

“I have,” he admits hoarsely. Jemma stills, staring at him as he collects himself. “When Hydra was rising, an agent nearly killed May. I shot him.”

 

“You were protecting someone,” she murmurs, tugging him forward by the shirt to settle between her knees. Her hand goes to his cheek and he leans into the comfort. It’s the first time he’s told anyone about what happened, and a significant weight lifts off of him.

 

“So were you,” he reminds her. “You were protecting yourself, Jemma. If you didn’t do it, every one of them would have killed you if they could.”

 

Jemma shakes her head. “They wanted me alive. Ward said that Whitehall was letting him _borrow_ me, and I don’t know what that means—“

 

“We’ll worry about that later,” Fitz says firmly. He moves away from her to roll an oxygen tank forward, proffering the mask. She rolls her eyes and places it over her mouth as he starts to fumble with several IV bags.

 

“Fitz, bring those over here. I’ll do it myself,” she tells him.

 

“You’re not well—“

 

“You have no idea what you’re doing,” she argues.

 

“Oxygen,” he orders, pointing at the mask. He places the IV bags beside her and she straps the mask on behind her head, looking at each item. She discards three out of the four and holds up a neon yellow one with a nod.

 

“I thought it was that one,” he lies. Her eyes say she doesn’t believe him and he smiles. “I’ll grab Trip to start the line.”

 

She shakes her head, snatching the IV starter from his hands and deftly inserting it into his own arm.

 

“Good Lord!” he cries, backing against the counter and slapping his hands over his eyes. “ _Simmons!”_

She giggles into the oxygen mask, shifting it from her mouth long enough to tease him. “I forgot what a weak stomach you have.”

 

“Shut it.”

 

Her little smile beneath the clear plastic of the oxygen mask causes a flutter in his gut that only grows when she reaches out for him. He holds her hands gently in his, rubbing his thumbs over the bruises on her wrists. Just looking at them causes his throat to tighten and he swallows hard. Jemma gestures at the tank after a few minutes and he turns it off, helping her get the mask off without tangling it in her matted hair.

 

“D’you think—would it be okay if I stayed with you?” Jemma asks quietly. “I’m just still really on edge, and I think it would help. To be close to someone.”

 

“I’d prefer it,” Fitz admits. “Haven’t slept much since Washington, to be honest.”

 

She smiles shyly. “Is there anywhere I can rinse off?”

 

“Right, of course.”

 

Skye helps him gather some fresh clothes for Jemma and then shows her to the women’s showers while Fitz hastily tidies his room. He considers taking down the photos he’s had of them since he first moved onto the Bus, but ultimately decides against it. Skye leads Jemma to his bunk once she’s done, and she stands nervously in the door, wearing a pair of SHIELD-issue sweatpants, a white shirt, and his hoodie.

 

“So I know you haven’t seen much TV in the last couple of years,” Fitz says as she perches on the edge of his mattress. “I thought you might want to watch something funny. They actually finished Parks and Recreation—“

 

“It’s over?!” Jemma gasps. “How sad.”

 

He nods. “Yeah, it’s done. _But_ I have all of the episodes downloaded on my harddrive, and I created this projector so we can watch it in here—“

 

Jemma cuts him off with a beaming but tired smile. “That sounds great. Thank you.”

 

“I’m just gonna—“

 

He squeezes himself into the small ensuite bathroom to change into some soft flannel pants and a T-shirt, coming back out to find her cuddled in the bed against the wall, blankets up to her chin. With a few pushes of on a remote, the projection screen drops down from the ceiling and the theme song of Parks and Recreation begins. Jemma scoots into his side, slowly inching one leg over his.

 

Tears build in her eyes as he tugs her closer and she presses a kiss to the center of his chest.

 

“I’m so sorry that I hurt you,” she whispers into the cotton of his t-shirt.

 

“Jemma, I told you, it’s okay.”

 

“It’s not. And I can never let it happen again.”

 

Her arms tighten around his middle. He knows she doesn’t need or even want a response—she just wants to tell him that, wants it to be an understood fact between them.

 

He does his best to stay awake, blinking sluggishly after the third episode, but only ten minutes later, he’s snoring softly against her shoulder. Jemma runs her hand through his curls, turning away from the screen to study his features.

 

Unlike Washington, she’s actually safe now. The guilt of having hurt him wraps around her insides and a brief gust of wind blows through his room. She desperately stops it, hoping it didn’t wake him. Just like the Academy, he sleeps like the dead and doesn’t stir.

 

It takes her a while, but eventually the tension in her muscles gives way to her exhaustion. She doesn’t wake until Skye comes to the door in the morning to check on them. 


	6. compass point you home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coulson meets with Jemma to discuss her future with SHIELD, Jemma and Fitz struggle to figure out how her new powers affect their partnership, and Skye puts Jemma on the Index.

Jemma shuffles awkwardly into Coulson’s office after her last round of medical examinations. Fitz stands protectively near the door and she practically shoos him away as she shuts the door behind her.

 

“You wanted to see me?”

 

Coulson smiles kindly and gestures at the chairs in front of his desk. “Take a seat, Ms. Simmons.”

 

She perches on the edge of her seat, prepared to take off at any moment. It’s a reflex that will certainly take more than just a few days in an underground base to shake. Coulson doesn’t comment on it, and she’s grateful.

 

“How are you settling in?” he asks.

 

“Good,” she replies automatically. He continues to stare at her and she equivocates in her answer. “I mean, as well as I can be. I heal at a slightly accelerated rate, so my leg wound isn’t causing too much trouble.”

 

He nods. “Ordinarily I don’t allow my agents to cohabitate, for the record.”

 

Jemma blushes and feels the urge to hide her face like an embarrassed child. “I appreciate you allowing this exception. I’m still getting back on my feet and being near Fitz helps.”

 

“Understandably so, and I’m glad to hear it. First things first—the matter of protection.”

 

Jemma furrows her brow. “I feel plenty protected on your base, sir.”

 

Coulson grimaces and she notices that now his cheeks are turning red. “I meant—in terms of—intercourse.”

 

Jemma’s jaw drops open. “Oh, no. We haven’t—we don’t—“

 

Coulson clears his throat and shuffles some papers on his desk absently. “Good. Well, not good. Not that it’s _bad.”_

“Sir?” Jemma asks, voice high. “Can we maybe skip this part?”

 

“ _Please,”_ Coulson sighs. “Anyway, most of our female field agents elect to have IUDs placed to prevent unwanted pregnancy. Just, generally. I have some paperwork here for you for…that.”

 

She thinks she hears him mumble something along the lines of _I told May she should handle this part,_ but she’s too caught up in something else that he said to pay too close of attention.

 

“Field agents, sir? I’m a scientist. Or at least, I was.”

 

Coulson folds his hands on the table in front of him, leaning forward. “Yes, you are one of the most brilliant minds that SHIELD has ever come across. And we would very much like to have you in our lab, working beside Fitz.”

 

“I sense a caveat,” Jemma says firmly. Her earlier shyness evaporates into defensive posturing. She didn’t survive her time in Hydra’s facility and then on the run by being a blushing beauty.

 

“SHIELD’s resources are incredibly strapped. I’m flying all around the world, searching safe houses for living and loyal agents. In the meantime, Hydra continues to grow. I’ve seen what you’re capable of, and you would be a very valuable asset to our field missions. You could save lives.”

 

“Hydra said something similar,” Jemma says, doing her best to keep her voice bland and even. “Forgive me, Director Coulson, but I trust secret spy agencies about as far as I can gust them.”

 

Coulson smiles wanly. “Again, that is perfectly understandable, Ms. Simmons.”

 

“Dr. Simmons,” she corrects, smirking a bit smugly. His small smile spreads to a full-out grin.

 

“You’re really going to fit in well with our team,” he chuckles. “Just consider it. I would recommend speaking with Skye as well. Not only is she in charge of the Index, but she’s become one of our strongest field agents in a very short time.”

 

Jemma nods, standing and shaking his hand. “Thank you, Director. I’ll think it over, and I appreciate everything you’ve done for me.”

 

The man shrugs. “You were a SHIELD agent, and the offer to become one again remains open to you. We failed you once and I could not, in good conscience, let that happen again.”

 

Jemma moves toward the door, and Coulson delivers his last statement.

 

“Besides, Fitz threatened to quit if we didn’t get you back.”

 

She doesn’t turn to acknowledge the statement but she pauses briefly with her hand on the doorknob. As soon as she steps out into the hallway, Fitz appears at her side.

 

“How did it go?”

 

Jemma begins walking toward their shared room, staring straight ahead. “Well, the Director of SHIELD talked to me about our sex life.”

 

The throwaway comment has its desired effect. Fitz immediately stops, freezing in the hallway.

 

“He said _what?”_

“It was mostly just a segue,” Jemma continues, hardly slowing her pace. “Since all of the female field agents use IUDs—“

 

“Field agent?!” Fitz yelps, jogging to catch up with her once more. “Jemma, you’re a scientist. _We_ are scientists.”

 

Jemma rubs her finger tips together and lights them aflame. “Yes, but now I’m a scientist with superpowers.”

 

Fitz rolls his eyes and blows out the fire. “You were far less enthused by these abilities when you were being _hunted because of them.”_

“If SHIELD is what you say it is, then I’m perfectly safe,” Jemma argues. They reach their room and he shuts the door behind them before responding.

 

“SHIELD is the best that it can be but that doesn’t mean you’re perfectly safe. Coulson is a good man and a good leader but he firmly believes that one life isn’t worth more than thousands. You will be no exception, no matter what you can do,” Fitz tells her seriously, grasping her shoulders gently in this palms.

 

“If he wants me to be in the field I have to be in the field,” Jemma insists. “He made it seem like I can do both but if I can help save lives—“

 

“What about your life?” Fitz demands. “Aren’t you tired of fighting, Jemma?”

 

“Of _course_ I’m sick of fighting!” Jemma huffs, stepping out from under his hands incredulously. “I’m exhausted! But if Coulson can’t find a use for me here, then I have to go back out there. And I cannot do that again, Fitz.”

 

Her voice cracks from the pressure and she looks away as moisture builds in her eyes. Fitz steps toward her once again, tentatively reaching for her hands with his own. His fingers tremble against hers as he takes a few steadying breaths.

 

“It’s your call,” he tells her lowly. “But if you have to leave, I’m going with you.”

 

Her eyes snap to his. “Fitz—“

 

He chuckles bitterly. “Don’t think I don’t know who I work for, Jemma. I got pulled from the ocean by Nick Fury because I’m _valuable._ You’re an asset under SHIELD’s control but you’re a liability outside of it. Don’t underestimate your bargaining power, okay? I made that mistake once.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

Now it’s his turn to look away. “When they couldn’t find you, in the rubble, I kept pushing for more extensive searches, but the area was considered a biohazard and SHIELD wasn’t willing to send in more agents. I asked them to search the surrounding area for you. Maybe real SHIELD agents would have found you before Hydra did.”

 

“Fitz…”

 

He licks his lips with a sharp shake of his head. “I didn’t make that mistake this time. After we found you in that alley I told Coulson that I would leave if we didn’t throw everything we had at finding you.”

 

Jemma steps closer, using the tips of her fingers to guide his cheek toward her. She presses up on her toes to kiss him lightly; there is no demand in the action. It is a simple communication of gratitude that she’s not capable of expressing with her words. He receives it in kind, one hand moving instantly into her hair even as he pulls away.

 

“I’m not letting them take you away again,” Fitz practically growls. The sound sends a bolt of heat through her gut.

 

“I’m not leaving,” she insists. “We’ll figure this out together, okay?”

 

“Of course we will,” he says with a slight smile. “We’re the youngest graduates in SciTech history.”

 

“Technically, _I’m_ the youngest SciTech graduate in history.”

 

“Cheeky,” Fitz grins, ducking down to kiss her playfully. The tension of their earlier conversation quickly melts into light touches and airy brushes of their lips until they’re interrupted by a loud beeping from Fitz’s desk. He groans into her neck and moves toward the sound.

 

“It’s the lab,” he tells her, reading the message on his tablet. “They need me. Care to join?”

 

She wavers nervously, fingers wringing together on impulse. The smallest breeze sweeps through the room and he raises his eyebrows.

 

“You’ve been having a lot of that lately,” he points out.

 

“A lot of what?” she asks defensively.

 

“Little gusts, bursts of your power,” Fitz clarifies.

 

Jemma clenches her fists quickly before she relaxes her fingers. “It only happens around you. When we’re alone.”

 

His brow furrows as he studies her intently. “What? D’you know why?”

 

She shrugs, doing her best to appear nonchalant. “Most of the time I have a wall. Not a real wall, obviously, but I imagine a wall around my ribcage. That’s where I feel my powers, is in my ribs. It’s a dull hum, most of the time, but when I have a flare of emotion it surges. I pull the wall down when I want to use them, but I keep it up otherwise. Except—except when I’m with you. I leave it down.”

 

His face softens and she nearly has to look away from his tender gaze. He moves toward her quickly, catching her mouth in a heated kiss. She sighs as he sucks lightly on her bottom lip, arching into his chest. He grips her tightly around the waist, grinning into her mouth as a gust of wind pushes his curls back. She giggles and pulls back.

 

“The lab needs you, remember?”

 

“Right. The lab,” he mumbles. “Are you sure you don’t want to come?”

 

Jemma winces. “Maybe tomorrow. Coulson suggested that I chat with Skye about this field agent thing.”

 

Fitz grimaces, crinkling his nose. “Don’t listen to her propaganda. Being in Ops isn’t _that_ great.”

 

“And how would you know, lab rat?” Jemma teases as they step into the hallway.

 

“Rude,” he shoots back, struggling to keep a straight face. “I’ll have you know I went on a two-man mission in Ossetia with no extraction plan, and the second man was Grant Ward.”

 

Jemma’s eyes widen to a nearly comic size. “WHAT?!”   


“I’ll tell you about it tonight,” he smirks, pecking her quickly on the cheek. “Skye’s probably at the shooting range.”

 

She watches him walk away, subtly attempting to admire the view. He’s nearly out of her sight by the time she realizes she has no idea where the shooting range is.

 

“FITZ! WHERE IS THAT?!”

 

“You’re loud,” Hunter says, popping up beside her. She starts, pressing a hand to her chest and accidently gusting him back slightly with her other one.

 

“Sorry,” she murmurs, abashed. “You frightened me.”

 

“No worries,” he grins. “That was actually rather fun. What are you looking for, love?”

 

“The shooting range?” Jemma asks uncertainly. “Fitz thinks that’s where Skye should be.”

 

Hunter glances down at his watch and nods. “Yep, shooting range it is. I’ll take you there.”

 

She follows after him, shuffling a bit awkwardly. At her best, Jemma had always been socially awkward. But that was before she’d changed and before she’d been hunted.

 

“So, you’ve known Fitz a long time, huh?”

 

Jemma nods before she realizes that he’s ahead of her and can’t see her face. “Yes. A little over eight years, before—y’know.”

 

“Before you became a superhero?” Hunter teases. “That might be longer than I’ve ever known anyone, other than my family.”

 

“Even Bobbi?”

 

Hunter snorts. “Shockingly, I’ve only known Bob for five years.”

 

“Oh,” Jemma says, surprised. “I assumed—“

 

“That two people who’d been married and divorced and got back together surely should have known one another longer than that? You’d probably be right.”

 

Jemma laughs. She finds Hunter’s oversharing to be comforting. It makes her feel a little less strange.

 

“How’s she doing?”

 

“Alright,” Hunter shrugs. “She’s not good at sitting still.”

 

Jemma snorts. “I know the feeling. I’m going a bit stir-crazy myself.”

 

“Bob was actually bio-chem. Maybe the two of you could find a project of interest. Or you could just help with her physio,” Hunter suggests. “She’s rather fond of the British.”

 

Hunter stops walking suddenly and she nearly collides with his back. He swings open the door to his right and Jemma is suddenly overcome with the sound of gunfire. In a panic, she throws her hands up, gusting Hunter behind herself and preparing herself for an attack. The gun in Skye’s hand flies through the air, discharging twice before it shatters against the wall.

 

Skye rips off her headphones, reaching behind herself for another gun off of the wall as she spins to aim at Jemma. As soon as she meet’s Jemma’s terrified brown eyes, she lowers her weapon.

 

“Holy shit,” Skye pants. “What the hell?”

 

Hunter puts a tentative hand on Jemma’s shoulder. “You alright, Simmons?”

 

She screws her eyes shut, visualizing her wall being built, brick by brick, crowding against her ribcage. It’s a comforting feeling, and she slowly feels herself regain control of the power swelling up in her. After just a few moments, it ebbs back down to a hum.

 

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers. “It was—I wasn’t—“

 

“The gunshots,” Hunter says sympathetically. She turns to him in surprise. “I was deep undercover once and was made. Spent nearly a year running for my life. It takes some time.”

 

A rush of kinship with the man falls over her and she nearly throws herself at him in a hug before she gains control of herself once again. Skye watches her carefully but kindly.

 

“No big deal, Jemma,” Skye says easily. “Come on, let’s go have some tea or something.”

 

“My turn for target practice,” Hunter evades. “As lovely as tea time with you ladies does sound—“

 

Skye rolls her eyes. “You’re not invited anyway.”

 

Jemma follows her out toward the kitchen and watches as Skye busies herself with the kettle.

 

“Coulson told me that I should speak with you,” Jemma finally says, breaking the silence. Skye doesn’t look surprised by this.

 

“About the Index, or about the field agent thing?”

 

“Both, I suppose.”

 

She nods. “So for the Index, I’m basically just going to interview you. We’ll have a small sample of your blood on file, and a record of what your abilities are. We can either do a check-in meeting every three months, or a small tracker in your forearm. It’s really up to you. Most people opt for the check-in, but that’s probably just because people look forward to seeing me.”

 

“Given that we live on the same base, I think that’s probably the best option,” Jemma smiles. “About being a field agent…”

 

Skye cuts her off to ask how she takes her tea. Jemma hops up to make her own with a light comment about Americans and their strange aversion to milk in tea. Skye rolls her eyes, dumps a boatload of sugar into her green tea.

 

“Let’s go to my bunk,” Skye says. “We’ll do your Index intake interview now, too. Kill two birds with one stone.”

 

Jemma assents, following Skye to her room. It’s messy and disorganized, her desk covered in screens and various electronics. Skye sits on the bed and pats the mattress, indicating that Jemma should join her. She does, scooting up against the wall while Skye leans on the headboard.

 

“Are all of your intake interviews this informal?”

 

“Not at all,” Skye laughs. “Ordinarily we sit at a table and have a very serious talk. But I like to think we know each other a bit better than that already. We can start with the field agent stuff, if you want.”

 

Jemma nods, and Skye launches into her story.  

 

“I became a field agent because I wanted to be part of something bigger than myself,” Skye explains. “I spent my whole life searching for my parents, getting bounced around to different foster homes. I first came to SHIELD trying to get information about where I came from, but then I got to know Coulson and Fitz and Wa—“

 

Skye’s voice breaks on the name and Jemma pats her hand in sympathy. Skye soldiers on.

 

“Anyway, we were tracking this guy called the Clairvoyant, and he had me shot so that Coulson would lead him to this miracle drug.”

 

“Fitz told me about it,” Jemma says. “I’m so sorry that happened to you.”

 

Skye shrugs, her fingers unconsciously moving to the scars on her stomach. “It was awful, don’t get me wrong. But it was my moment of clarity, where I realized that I wanted to do something to protect people. I never wanted to be that vulnerable and weak again. Then after we were betrayed and Hydra rose, it became like—almost like watching your sibling get bullied at school. I needed to stand up and fight and protect SHIELD. So May started training me, and she kicked my ass but now I’m capable of things I never would have dreamed of being able to do even six months ago.”

 

“I’m not—I want to help people. I want to protect the world from threats that we can’t understand but…but I _am_ one of those threats that we can’t understand. I just might be of better use in the lab, where I can analyze threats, help us all know what we’re dealing with.”

 

Skye studies her carefully, brown eyes sweeping over her expression. “You haven’t had much of a chance to try to understand your powers, have you?”

 

Jemma shakes her head. “It’s driving me mad. It’s been _years._ I’m a bio-chemist. Everything that’s happening inside of me makes no scientific sense. I can’t find any biological reason why this could have happened. Without proper lab equipment, I haven’t been able to analyze if this is some sort of radioactive mutation, like Dr. Banner, or something else.”

 

“Well, I certainly understand what it’s like to want to know where you come from,” Skye says. “Coulson understands how important science is to you, and we’d be insane not to ask you to work in our lab. We really need your mind on our side.”

 

“And yet…” Jemma trails off, giving Skye a knowing look. Skye cringes.

 

“I’m a shitty recruiter,” Skye admits. “We need you. We need what you can do. With Bobbi out of commission for the time being, we could really use you. We just lost two of our mercenaries that came in with Hunter. If we want to survive this war with Hydra, we need more firepower.”

 

“And I’m the firepower,” Jemma breathes. Unable to resist, she creates a small flame on her fingertips. “Literally.”

 

Skye laughs. “You should try that on Coulson. He loves a good pun. But yeah, basically. Look, I wouldn’t be on board with this if we didn’t need you, and if you _really_ don’t want to do it, you’ll still be able to stay on base. Coulson will try to pretend like he’ll boot you out, but he’s a softie. Besides, we can’t afford to lose Fitz.”

 

Jemma hums. “He wasn’t too pleased with the idea of me going into the field.”

 

“Hypocrite,” Skye mutters under her breath. “The guy has a total disregard for his own life. He was always eager to get his hands dirty, trust me.”

 

Jemma’s heart speeds up at the thought and a small burst of wind nearly escapes. She quickly reconstructs her little internal wall and pushes forward with the conversation.

 

“Would May train me, too?”

 

“Yeah, and I would help too. Once Bobbi is back up and running, she would most likely be your S.O.”

 

“I guess…I guess I could try. On a temporary basis, for now.”

 

Skye grins playfully. “Sure you don’t need to talk it over with your husband?”

 

Jemma’s cheeks instantly redden, heat flooding her face. “Not you, too. Coulson already gave me the most uncomfortable birds and the bees talk this morning.”

 

Skye’s jaw drops into a startled laugh. “You’re kidding me.”

 

Jemma regales her with the tale of Coulson and the Birth Control Talk while Skye laughs uncontrollably on the bed.

 

“Oh my God,” she finally sighs, brushing tears of mirth from her eyes. “That’s one of the best AC stories yet. And I hate to do this to you, but we should probably get the intake over with.”

 

Jemma nods reluctantly, watching Skye trade her mug for a tablet. “Alright, then. Let’s get on with it.”

 

“Just so you know, I have to record the whole thing. Normally we have audio and video, but we’ll just do audio. I already know the answers to some of the questions, but I need them on this record.”

 

Skye clicks on the recorder and looks at her pre-listed questions.

 

“When did you first start exhibiting powers?”

 

“It was September of 2011,” Jemma answers.

 

“Did something happen to trigger the powers, to your knowledge?”

 

“I was working in the biology lab at SciOps. Fitz and I had just finished up a prototype, but there was specialized machinery there that I needed so I popped over. Next thing I knew I was waking up in the rubble.”

 

“What is the extent of your powers, to the best of your knowledge?”

 

Jemma takes a deep breath in. “I can manipulate oxygen molecules. I can create wind currents of various speeds as well as dust storms and small tornados. If I focus, I can kind of—see them, in the air or in water. In the last six months, I’ve started focusing on a smaller level. If I create just a small bit of friction, I can start fires. I use my hands to channel my…ability. I can remove oxygen from the air in a fairly large space, and with enough focus, I can remove oxygen directly from a person’s lungs.”

 

Jemma does her best to describe things as clinically as she possibly can, but it’s impossible not to falter on the last part. Skye glances at her worriedly but Jemma gestures for her to continue.

 

“Have there been any fatalities as a result of your abilities? If so, how many?”

 

Jemma sucks in a sharp breath through her nose, her eyes closing on their own accord. “There were thirty-one other scientists in the building that day. I’m the only known survivor. When I was first taken to the Hydra facility, I accidentally killed two agents, who I believed, at the time, were SHIELD agents. In my escape, I killed four more. While I was on the run, I killed approximately seven Hydra agents and one other gifted who was with Cal.”

 

Her breathing becomes slightly erratic as she lays out the numbers. They’re not unfamiliar to her and it doesn’t take her long at all to recall them. She goes through the tally in her head almost every day. Regardless, speaking it out loud causes a bit of bile to rise in the back of her throat and she forces it down. Skye gives her some time to collect herself before continuing.

 

“What do your powers feel like, when they’re happening to you?”

 

“My primary ability seems to be wind-based, so I feel it start in my lungs. There’s a pressure in my rib-cage, though it’s not necessarily unpleasant. It’s like taking a very, very deep breath, and having that breath cycle around. It surges into my chest and down my arms, and then I’m able to control it by focusing in on my fingers and my hands,” Jemma explains. “In fact I would be very curious to do some scans of my lungs while using my abilities.”

 

“Nerd,” Skye mutters with a fond little shake of her head. “Is anyone else aware of your abilities?”

 

Jemma laughs humorlessly. “Let’s see, there’s me, all of SHIELD, all of Hydra, and then whoever the hell madman Cal is.”

 

Skye grimaces. “Do you have the names of any Hydra agents?”

 

Jemma bites her lip. “The first name in my mind is Daniel Whitehall,” she says, voice trembling slightly on the name. “He was the…doctor, responsible for experimentation at the Hydra facility.”

 

Skye stiffens. “Experimentation?”

 

“What did you all think happened at a Hydra facility for gifteds?” Jemma asks. It comes out a bit accusatory but she truly intends it to be curious.

 

“We assumed it was like any other detention center,” Skye replies quietly. “And I am just now realizing how stupid that was.”

 

“Yes, well, Whitehall was particularly invested in trying to figure out what gave us powers.”

 

“Can you remember the names of anyone else in the facility? Any other powered people?”

 

Jemma shuts her eyes once more. “Only one. Lincoln Campbell. He was approximately twenty-five years old, capable of controlling electric pulse. He could conduct lightning. He was originally from Oregon. He was a medical student until he was captured by Hydra.”

 

Skye’s brow furrows. “Do you know if he’s still alive?”

 

Jemma shakes her head. “I have no idea. We escaped together, but we were separated in the process. He was—a very good man. We kept each other sane. Our cells shared a wall.”

 

Skye swallows hard and presses forward. This has always been the most difficult part of her job and it’s especially hard to get through this process with a person that she already has some sentimental attachment to.

 

Skye asks several more questions about the Hydra facility itself. Jemma was able to deduce that it was located on the outskirts of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and was able to recall several agents’ names that were stationed there.

 

She describes the many medical procedures to Skye, first attempting the most scientific descriptions possible but eventually resorting to layman’s terms to help Skye understand. She discusses the time they submerged her in a tank of water for nearly ten minutes to test if she could breathe underwater and how they’d decreased the oxygen levels in her cell to dangerously low points in order to discern if she could create oxygen from thin air. They tested her healing abilities with non-anesthesitized surgical procedures, but had quickly given up on them when they realized that while her healing rates were slightly accelerated, they weren’t enough to constitute a power in their own right.

 

Skye listens through all of it, trying and failing to keep her face impassive, particularly when Jemma’s throat catches on a story or when tears drip down her cheeks, dropping onto Skye’s duvet.

 

“What level of control do you have of your abilities?”

 

“A fairly high degree,” Jemma asserts. “The feeling in my chest is fairly constant, but I’m able to keep it at a low hum. It’s triggered by emotion and by adrenaline. In those instances, I’m usually able to maintain control, but it requires constant vigilance. Lately I’ve had a few small gusts out of my control, but they only occur when I’m with Fitz. Agent Leo Fitz, for the official record.”

 

Skye snorts. “The official record does not wanna know what Agent Leo Fitz does to make you _lose control.”_

Jemma blushes and swats at Skye. “Nothing like that!”

 

She pauses for a moment and amends her statement.

 

“Well, once. But otherwise it’s just a—a vulnerability thing. I feel safe enough to lower the safeguard.”

 

Skye practically melts at her words. “That’s so sweet.”

 

Jemma’s nose crinkles. “It’s a simple biological response. In the presence of a longtime companion, serotonin levels spike, especially when reunited after a long time apart—“

 

“Oh my God, please do not explain the science of love to me,” Skye groans. “And we’re all finished with the intake questions, by the way. I shut it off right before you went all Love Doctor on me.”

 

“All things are science,” Jemma corrects primly. “Love included.”

 

“I’m really glad that we were able to help you,” Skye blurts out suddenly. Jemma is momentarily taken aback.

 

“So am I,” she agrees.

 

“Fitz is…it’s like he’s a totally different person,” Skye explains. “When I first met him he was so broody. He didn’t have much interest in being in the field but it didn’t seem like he’d really been given a choice in the matter. He wanted nothing to do with me or with Ward. Fitz was so closed off. After a few near-death experiences we sort of grew on him, of course, but—there was always something missing. Sometimes I would catch him muttering to himself, rubbing his own shoulder like there was someone standing behind him. But ever since he saw you in that alley, he’s been a man with a mission. And now that you’re back, he has—I don’t even want to say purpose, cause it’s almost…more than that.”

 

“We’ve always been partners,” Jemma responds after a long moment.

 

“Partners? I don’t think that’s quite the right term for it.”

 

Jemma can’t stop the smile that blooms slowly on her features. “He’s more than that. I suppose he always was, but it wasn’t until I thought I’d never see him again that it really sunk in. Funny how that works out.”

 

Skye’s eyes darken with pain as she nods her agreement. “It’s only when you know for sure that you can’t have someone, isn’t it? That’s when you realize what they meant to you.”

 

“Sometimes it turns out you can, though,” Jemma says encouragingly. “It can turn around when you least expect it.”

 

Skye smiles sadly. “Not all of us get that kind of love. And that’s alright. But you did get it. It’s something I would advise holding very tightly to.”

 

The words hit Jemma square in the chest and a small breeze flutters Skye’s bangs. The other girl laughs in delight.

 

“Can I please be the one to tell Fitz that I made you lose control in my bedroom?” Skye giggles, somber mood already forgotten. She picks up her tablet. “I need to get my camera ready for the look on his face when he thinks I’ve seduced his girl.”

 

Jemma throws her head back in a laugh and follows Skye to the lab, her previous anxieties about returning to a scientific environment temporarily forgotten.

 

Skye turns out to be completely correct; the bewildered and then outraged expression on his face is completely worth the prank. Skye makes it the background on all of SHIELD’s computers for an entire week. 


	7. be my man (and show me what it feels like)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jemma faces the lab for the first time in years and begins training. A bit of teasing leads to Fitz taking things to the next level, and Skye comes to FitzSimmons with some concerns regarding Director Coulson.

Jemma and Fitz enter the kitchen, giggling over some nostalgic tale or other. The sight of Fitz leading Jemma around the base by the hand has become a common one, but regardless, it always seems to warm Skye’s heart just a bit. As she’d told Jemma during their intake, she’d never seen this side of Fitz before. Watching him smile and laugh with ease soothes something in her own soul, something that Ward had broken inside of her. In her musings, she doesn’t notice them both invade her personal space. Skye looks up at them, a bit startled, and they exchange a glance before leaning onto the counter at exactly the same time.

 

“Just so you guys know, it’s kinda freaky when you do that,” Skye says wryly, lifting her latte to her lips and pointing with one finger between them.

 

“So we’ve been told,” Fitz says, rolling his eyes. “It’s not intentional, we don’t even really know—“

 

“—how it still happens after so much time apart,” Jemma finishes. Skye grins, shaking her head softly.

 

“I didn’t say it wasn’t also freaking _adorable,_ just that it’s a little…unnerving.”

 

Fitz huffs, but Jemma continues her intended conversation anyway. “Speaking of unnerved, you looked rather off-put yourself.”

 

Skye sighs heavily, leaning back on her seat. “It’s just…something seems _off_ with Coulson.”

 

Fitz’s eyebrows raise. “How so?”

 

“He’s being _super_ shady,” Skye explains, voice lowered. “I broke into his office last night and I found this switch—“

 

Fitz cuts her off. “Wait, he’s acting suspicious so you just jumped right to breaking and entering?”

 

“I tried asking first!” Skye exclaims in her defense. “He just told me that nothing was going on. And he asked me recently if I was having any side-effects from the GH-325. When I said no and asked him why, he clammed up. Then he just walked off. May has been acting weird, too. She _knows_ something.”

 

“May _always_ knows something,” Fitz reminds her.

 

“This is different,” Skye insists. “I’m telling you, something really weird is going on. And if he’s the Director, we deserve to know about it, don’t you think?”

 

Jemma looks between them and shrugs. “I practically just got here.”

 

Fitz seems to think about her words. “Did you flick the switch?”

 

Skye nods. “I did, and it turned an entire wall around and it was covered in these—carvings. These weird shapes that made no sense. I don’t know what they are, or if he’s doing them, or what, but—“

 

“But that most definitely seems strange,” Jemma agrees. Fitz gives her a heavy look.

 

“What happened to ‘I just got here’?” he asks, a bit indignantly.

 

She crosses her arms and pegs him with a stare of her own. “As someone who has very little reason to trust any and all secret agencies, I’m not exactly thrilled to find that the Director of this one is hiding something from his favorite agent.”

 

Skye grins a bit smugly at that and Fitz scoffs. “Favorite agent? Skye’s not his _favorite agent.”_

The girls exchange a glance and look back at him, matching smirks on their faces.

 

“Sure, Fitz,” they say in tandem.

 

He snorts. “This whole you two being friends thing? I’m not so sure that I’m a fan.”

 

“Oh c’mon, that computer background was funny,” Skye laughs.

 

“Blowing all of my papers around the lab was _not_ ,” Fitz pouts. “The lab techs had a real laugh with that.”

 

“That was Jemma!” Skye yelps.

 

“It was Skye’s idea!” Jemma protests in unison. Fitz chuckles warmly and shakes his head.

 

“Both of you will be the death of me. Did you get any photos of these carvings?”

 

Skye nods. “Of course I did.”

 

“Alright,” Fitz says resolutely. “Let’s all meet up tonight, have a look at them.”

 

“Should we bring anyone else in on this?” Jemma asks, worrying her lower lip between her teeth. Fitz finds it momentarily distracting, but pulls himself out of it.

 

“No. Bus Team only,” he says. Skye grins a little bit, hopping up with a squeeze to his shoulder.

 

“Bus Team only,” she agrees. “I’ll see you guys later. I have some former SHIELD agents to track before training with May. You’ll be there in the afternoon, right?”

 

Jemma musters up a weak smile, her spirit significantly dampened. Would she and Fitz have been a part of this Bus Team together? The reminder of the time they lost still aches and tugs on something she can’t quite recognize. Despite the obviously platonic relationship between them, Jemma still feels the occasional twinge of jealousy and hurt when Fitz and Skye have those little moments.

 

“Yes. Morning in the lab, afternoon training with May, early evening will be some protocol training with Agent Morse.”

 

“Call her Bobbi if you wanna get on her good side,” Skye calls as she walks away. “And if you really wanna get on her _bad_ side, call her Barbara.”

 

Once Skye leaves, Jemma begins to hesitantly make her way around the kitchen. Fitz watches her carefully, observing the ways that she still seems unsure in this new space. Despite having lived at the Playground for weeks, she always seems ready to run and as though she feels vaguely unwelcome.

 

“Ready for your first day back in the lab?” he asks. Her shoulders tense as she clicks on the electric kettle and she turns to him with a brittle smile.

 

“Looking forward to it!” she chirps. Her voice sounds stale to his ears and he stands, moving toward her with hands reading to grasp her.

 

“Hey, if you’re not ready—“

 

“I am,” she insists, whirling around with her voice hardening. “I just—I’ve only been _this_ for a few years. I was a scientist my entire life. It shouldn’t feel—it shouldn’t be—“

 

She cuts off, turning away from him to grab mugs from the cabinet. He knows that this is a classic Jemma move, now. She constantly turns away from conversations she doesn’t want to have, and from words she doesn’t want to say. He wonders if she’d have turned out this way no matter what or if being alone for so long crafted her into this.

 

It doesn’t matter to him. She can turn away as many times as she wants and he’ll still love her with her back turned.

 

“It shouldn’t be what?” he asks gently.

 

“It shouldn’t be so _scary,”_ she admits hoarsely. “I’ve done so many things in the last few years, I’ve been shot at and hunted and chased down but I’m afraid to go into a lab? That’s ridiculous.”

 

She barks out a humorless and slightly watery laugh that breaks his heart. He tugs her into him and wraps his arms tightly around her waist. Jemma’s muscles loosen in his grip and he smiles slightly into her hair.

 

“What are you afraid of?”

 

She sighs lightly, fingers playing absently with the collar of his shirt as she tries to put it into words.

 

“There are so many variables in a lab,” Jemma finally says. Fitz takes a couple of steps backward, pulling her with him as he leans against the counter so that he can better see her without removing his hands from her.

 

“I think it’s safe to say you were dealing with _a lot_ more variables out there.”

 

“But these are different,” Jemma says. “There’s chemicals, dangerous machinery, a bunch of innocent lab techs just going about their business…”

 

“You have an amazing degree of control, you’re not going to detonate some deathly combination of chemicals. Besides, our workstations are away from the storage areas. I’ve rearranged everything to make you as comfortable as possible, since I thought you might feel a bit like a bull in a china shop. And, the lab techs stay on their side,” Fitz assures her. She raises her eyebrows at him and he blushes faintly. “I—well, I don’t exactly play well with others.”

 

She smirks at him, glancing him up and down in a way that shoots right to his core. He shifts uncomfortably against the counter. “I beg to differ on that one.”

 

“Jemma,” he whines. “Y’can’t do that in the kitchen.”

 

“Don’t wanna know, mate,” Hunter’s voice interrupts. He walks in, holding his hands up. “But hey, good for you.”

 

Jemma rolls her eyes and off-handedly gusts him backward a few inches. Fitz’s jaw drops. “Jemma!”

 

“He enjoys it!” she defends. “Don’t you, Hunter?”

 

“It’s loads of fun,” Hunter admits with a little embarrassed wince. “You’re lucky she showed up already spoken for.”

 

“ _You’re_ lucky I showed up already spoken for,” Jemma teases. She pulls down one more mug and Fitz’s chest rolls with something hot as she makes up a mug of tea for Hunter, just the way the mercenary likes it.

 

“You absolute beauty,” he sighs as he takes it from her. “See you this afternoon, love.”

 

He throws her a wink and leaves the kitchen, Fitz glowering at his back. Jemma watches him closely.

 

“I know that look,” she hums, stirring a splash of milk into her cup.

 

“What look?”

 

“Your jealous look,” she says easily. Fitz huffs out a breath through his nose and shakes his head.

 

“Not possible, since I’m not jealous. Back to the topic of the lab—“

 

“I’d rather talk about this,” Jemma grins, gesturing vaguely at his face. “You _really_ don’t like Hunter flirting with me.”

 

His brow furrows. “Of course I don’t. He knows how I feel about you, seems a bit rude if you ask me.”

 

Jemma’s teasing smile softens into something more akin to fondness and she leans forward to place a lingering kiss to his lips.

 

“And he knows how _I_ feel about _you,_ Agent Fitz,” she murmurs. “So, are you ready to throw your weight around and keep the lab techs out of our part of the lab? I’d really like to get through my first day without blowing anyone or anything up.”

 

He grins back at her, still slightly dazed from her kiss. “See, now, I don’t consider it a successful day in the lab _until_ I’ve blown up someone or something.”

 

“I remember that quite clearly,” Jemma laughs, taking his hand and leading the way toward the lab. “It took nearly three months to grow my eyebrows back, thanks. Also, I can’t believe you just called me a bull.”

 

“You know damn well what I meant!” he exclaims.

 

“Oh, did I? Because it sounds to me like you were comparing me to something of the bovine persuasion!”

 

Neither one of them spots Trip and Skye in the briefing area. Skye is perched on top of the holotable (and had Fitz noticed, he’d certainly have told her off for it) as Trip leans beside her. As soon as they hear the scientists, their attention is drawn away from the photo and information of a missing SHIELD Ops agent in front of them.

 

Skye grins at Fitz and Jemma as they bicker their way down the hallway, hands locked tightly together. She watches them until they turn out of sight.

 

“They’re really cute, aren’t they?” she says to Trip. He smiles a bit sadly at her wistful tone of voice, the wounds that Ward left in her still plain as day on her face.

 

“Yeah, they are,” he agrees. He draws her attention back to the screen just as she begins to get that look in her eyes that he can’t stand to see. “So his last known location was where, again?”

 

Skye jumps right back in, temporarily forgetting that the man who broke her heart is now the monster in their basement.

 

***

 

Jemma’s first day back in the lab goes swimmingly. Despite some initial fumbles with procedure and technicalities of the equipment, she does quite well. She and Fitz manage to crack a problem that he’s been facing for months with the malfunctioning of some cloaking technology for one of the planes and they’re finally able to really start examining the differences in Jemma’s DNA post-transformation.

 

It’s like looking at something entirely inhuman. She’d caught glimpses of data while she was in that Hydra facility, but the morons working there had been too stupid to utilize the best skill she had. While they were preoccupied with her abilities, they’d overlooked the fact that she was the best and brightest biologist available to them. Her own curiosity had nearly driven her mad enough to point this out to them, but then she thought of what might happen to the others in the facility. Perhaps experimentation would grow more extreme, more painful. Perhaps they would all be killed, or used as weapons, or any other array of horrible things. So she’d kept her mouth shut about her expertise.

 

She wishes she had more time in the lab to puzzle over her DNA, but before she knows it, Skye has come to fetch her for Ops training. She quietly bids goodbye to Fitz, blushing beet red when he pecks her lips distractedly and wishes her a good afternoon. A few of the lab techs titter and giggle across the lab and she makes a note to discuss office PDA with him later (even though he’ll be sure to mention how she’d repeatedly played with his hair while they looked over some schematics).

 

“You two are really cute,” Skye observes casually on their walk to the locker room.

 

Jemma’s blush grows worse under Skye’s gaze. “Yes, well, anyone we went to the Academy with would tell you this has been a long time coming.”   


“And what is _this_ exactly?”

 

There’s a certain level of threat to Skye’s tone that causes Jemma to stop in her tracks. “Excuse me?”

 

“I just—he was in love with you way before this. And I don’t want this to be some thing where he was _there_ and you were scared so you let something happen. Emotions have been running really high—“

 

“I like you,” Jemma cuts her off. Skye looks a bit confused, but Jemma plows forward. “I think you’re a good person and you seem to be a very good friend to Fitz, but you don’t know me, not really. I had feelings for him long before the accident and those didn’t go away while I was being tortured or when I was running for my life. Forgive me if I’m not moving slowly enough for your tastes.”

 

Skye looks simultaneously impressed and scared by Jemma’s little speech, raising her hands up. “Fair enough. I just had to play my little sister card.”

 

Jemma’s glare softens slightly. “I’m glad you’ve looked out for him, but you should know that I would never let anything hurt him, including myself.”

 

Skye grimaces as they reach their lockers, fiddling with her lock. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have attacked you like that.”

 

Jemma shrugs. “It’s fine. I understand, I’m an outsider. An unknown variable, if you will. Especially given the whole powered thing.”

 

“We all trust you.”

 

Jemma raises her eyebrows doubtfully. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Agent Mack doesn’t seem fond of me.”

 

Skye rolls her eyes, removing her button-down and trading it out for an athletic top. “Mack isn’t really fond of any of this. I don’t know why he’s even sticking with SHIELD but he’s the best mechanic we have. There was only so much that Fitz could fix. He had to prioritize bigger stuff.”

 

“We cracked the cloaking problem,” Jemma informs her as she does up her trainers. “He should have it dealt with by the end of the day.”

 

Skye whistles. “You two really are a couple of geniuses.”

 

Jemma grins, pleased. “We’ve always worked best together. I know I’ve always felt better, having him as my second pair of eyes.”

 

“Ready?” May’s voice interrupts. “We’re going to start with some basic hand-to-hand. I want to see where Agent Simmons stands.”

 

She turns on her heel and heads toward the gym. Skye and Jemma exchange a look and follow after her like a pair of chastised ducklings. When they arrive on the mats, they find Agent Morse sitting nearby with a note pad. She seems to be glaring down at her broken leg.

 

“Taking notes, Bob?” Skye asks with a grin. Bobbi glares at her mocking.

 

“Yeah, that way I can really kick your ass once I’m up and running.”

 

Skye coughs out a laugh. “As if you couldn’t do that with a bum leg.”

 

Jemma watches the exchange silently, shifting nervously from foot to foot on the mat. Bobbi observes her carefully.

 

“Nervous, Simmons?”

 

“Call me Jemma,” she says back, recalling Skye’s advice from earlier. “I’m um…I haven’t fought anyone without using my powers.”

 

May steps toward her, neutral face strangely calming. “We won’t have you spar with Skye yet. I assure you that I can handle it if you accidentally lose control.”

 

Jemma chews her lip nervously, looking around at the women in the room. They’re all incredibly tough, she reasons. They’ve probably fought powered people before and they’ve all obviously lived to tell the tale. Regardless of this intellectual reasoning, her stomach knots itself up at the thought of hurting any of them. These are her new colleagues, Fitz’s _friends._ Most of all, they’re human beings and every time she hurts someone it does something horrible to her heart.

 

Agent May lets her process for a moment before she asks if she’s ready. Jemma nods wearily and lets Bobbi tape up her hands. She marvels at the other woman’s dexterity and appreciates the comforting little smile that Bobbi gives her when she’s done. She’s a bit put out that Bobbi’s injured and can’t jump right in as her S.O. Feeling a bit sorry for the blonde agent, she leans forward with her own little grin.

 

“I like you.”

 

Bobbi’s grin grows larger. “I like you too, Jemma. Go play.”

 

Jemma turns nervously toward May and Skye, who watch her with varying degrees of interest. May nods at her and backs up a few steps.

 

“We’ll just take it easy at first, okay? I want to see what your instincts are.”

 

Jemma nods. “Should I—try to hit you? Or?”

 

Jemma catches the older agent in a rare, tiny smile. “I’ll come at you first. Let’s see your defensive moves.”

 

May comes at her with a kick, which Jemma ducks on instinct, stumbling back several feet. She comes back at her swinging punches, and Jemma throws her hands up in defense, gusting her backward. May lands on her back on the mat, jumping up quickly.

 

“Are you alright?” Jemma asks worriedly. “I’m so sorry, it’s just—“

 

“You’re a scientist,” May reminds her plainly. “I’m a trained Ops agent. You’ve got one thing on me and it’s that wind trick. Of course your mind wants to use it, but you need to try to fight against that impulse, okay?”

 

Jemma gulps and nods, gritting her teeth in resolve. “Yes. I’ll do my best.”

 

“Good,” May replies. “Again.”

 

And they try, again and again. Each time that May amps up her own aggression, Jemma’s defensive gusts come more frequently and stronger. At one point, she throws May back so hard that it takes her several long moments to gain her bearings and peal herself up off the floor. Jemma tries to stop after that, but May has none of it.

 

“I told you, Agent Simmons, it takes a lot more than that to hurt me.”

 

Jemma doesn’t even register the footsteps behind her as May comes back at her once more. The power behind May’s kicks and strikes is stronger than it was for the first hour, and Jemma is dripping in sweat as she ducks and bobs away from the other agent. When May’s fist nearly makes contact, Jemma manages to push May’s forearm with her own and land a punch.

 

She would have been a bit prouder of this if it hadn’t taken her by surprise. The victory of it rushes through her and she freezes long enough for May to sweep her legs out from under her. Jemma hits the ground with a loud thud, gasping for breath for a moment as Skye runs over to pull her up.

 

“You good?” Skye asks, looking her over.

 

Jemma nods, smiling brightly. She brushes her sweaty hair out of her face. “Yeah, I’m fine. I got May!”

 

May turns her face away to hide her own blossoming smile. “Barely. Again?”

 

Skye whines. “I’ve been watching you two all afternoon. When is it my turn?”

 

Jemma enjoys watching Skye interact with both Coulson and May. Their relationships are so different than the ones that the superior officers have with the other agents, although Fitz is a close second. The ‘Original BUS Team’ seems to really be a _thing,_ and it both warms and stings her.

 

“Jemma and I should probably start going over protocols,” Bobbi calls from her seat. “We don’t wanna push her too hard.”

 

May nods her assent, gesturing for Skye to take her place. “Good work, Agent Simmons. Your instincts are solid. We’ll work on some disarming moves tomorrow.”

 

Jemma nods her thanks and turns to scamper off toward Bobbi. She spots Fitz leaning against the door to the gym, Hunter beside him. Hunter grins at her, shooting her a thumbs up and a wink. Fitz, on the other hand, studies her carefully, biting his lip with some sort of uncertainty that makes her feel unstable.

 

Bobbi recaptures her attention and she tears her eyes away from his. Fitz turns to head back to the lab as Hunter approaches them and collapses onto the mat near Bobbi’s propped up leg.

 

“How ya feelin’?” he asks. Jemma observes the way he looks at her, a combination of distrust and affection that absolutely fascinates her mind.

 

Bobbi relaxes automatically in his presence, rolling her eyes but failing to hide her smile. “I’m fine. Still just—sitting here.”   


The entire trio is temporarily distracted by May flipping Skye onto the mat. Hunter turns back to them once Skye is back on her feet.

 

“I hear you’re going over protocols. Now that I’m a proper SHIELD agent, I ought to learn some of those myself, yeah?”

 

Jemma’s brow furrows. “You weren’t a SHIELD agent before?”

 

Bobbi shakes her head. “Not until we picked you up, actually. That’s when he decided to stay.”

 

Hunter nudges Jemma’s sneaker with a cheeky grin. “After meeting you, I just had to join this freakshow.”

 

Jemma rolls her eyes. “So who did you work for before?”

 

“I was with the SAS, then I was a mercenary,” Hunter shrugs. “When SHIELD fell Bob showed up at my flat and told me I had to come with her.”

 

Jemma blinks in confusion. “Why? You weren’t in SHIELD.”

 

“Yes, but there was no way to know if Hydra knew he was my ex-husband,” Bobbi explains, eying said ex wearily. “I didn’t want anything to happen to him because of me.”

 

“Aw, Bob,” Hunter coos. “All these years and you haven’t moved on.”

 

She huffs. “Says the man who still had our wedding photo on his mantel.”

 

“Kept it there for dart practice,” he fires back. They share a mischevious smile and Jemma clears her throat.

 

“So…protocols?”

 

Bobbi shakes herself. “Right. Sorry. Hunter, if you’re going to distract the rest of the class you’ll need to leave.”

 

“Do I get _private lessons?”_

Bobbi’s glare freezes his flirtation and he stands, slapping his thighs with his palms.

 

“Right then. Since when have I cared about protocol anyway? See you two later. If anyone needs me, I’ll be bugging Mack in the garage.”

 

Bobbi watches him leave before she cracks open a binder on her lap. “Alright. So, we’ll start with the protocols of extraction.”

 

Jemma eyes the binder with excitement. “Is this color-coded?”

 

“Color-coded and cross-referenced with numerical tabs,” Bobbi smirks. “I made it myself.”

 

Jemma gasps and snatches it, staring at it in awe. “This is _seriously_ impeccable.”

 

Bobbi’s face looks like it might split from the wide, beaming smile on her face. “Finally! Someone who appreciates my non-baton related skill sets!”

 

If Jemma had any doubts before, they’re gone now. She and her supervising officer are going to get along _just_ fine.

 

***

 

She doesn’t get a moment alone with Fitz until after dinner, when she finds him sitting in their bunk, listening to his headphones at his desk. Jemma approaches as loudly as she can, but they seem to be noise-cancelling and he doesn’t notice her until she’s upon him. He jumps in surprise but recovers quickly.

 

“What are you working on?” she asks as he slides off his headphones.

 

“Just re-working some schematics for the Night Night guns. Now that I have you on board, I think we can really make them more effective.”

 

Jemma smiles at this enthusiasm and drapes herself over his shoulders, nuzzling into his neck. He grimaces slightly and she pulls back.

 

“What’s the matter?” she asks. Her heart leaps into her throat, mind flashing back to the look on his face as he’d stood in the gym doorway.

 

He crinkles his face. “You’re just really sweaty, Jemma.”

 

After a brief moment of nearly overwhelming relief, her jaw drops indignantly. “Hey! I’m not _sweaty._ I’m _glowing.”_

Fitz shakes his head with a rueful little smile. “You’re disgusting, that’s what you are.”

 

Jemma climbs onto his lap while he meagerly protests, some of his utensils hitting the ground. She leans forward into his space and sniffs him loudly.

 

“I worked out all day,” she says primly. “What’s your excuse?”

 

“I smell like a daisy!” he exclaims, hands winding around her waist. She scoffs and pecks him on the forehead.

 

“Do not. I really should shower, though.”

 

Fitz chuckles with a nod. “You said it.”

 

She rolls her eyes and climbs off of him, pulling her shirt over her head. “It’s a shame that this base has communal showers.”

 

Fitz turns around just in time to watch her wrap a towel around her naked body and slide into some flip flops. His mouth goes dry and he swallows.

 

“Why’s that?”

 

“Since I can’t ask you to join me,” she winks. She slides out of the bunk with a satisfied little grin and then power-walks to the showers. She ordinarily wears a robe, but she’d felt an overwhelming need to prove to herself that he still _wanted_ her. That expression in his eyes this afternoon shook her in a way she couldn’t place, and there’d been a growing sense of uncertainty building up in her.

 

As she steps under the hot spray of the water, she exhales a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. For the first time in forever, there are no bruises or scrapes marring her skin. She rolls her head back and forth, enjoying the feeling of the sweat of her day leaving her.

 

The door to the bathroom swings open and then a beeping noise startles her. She immediately feels defensive, pressing against the shower wall with one hand raised in preparation to defend herself.

 

Then she hears a zipper and a familiar brogue cursing. Putting one hand over her mouth, she withholds her giggles as she listens to Fitz struggle out of his clothes. By the time he slips into the curtain, she’s composed enough to pretend that she never heard it.

 

“Fitz!” she gasps. In all honesty, she is genuinely surprised at his boldness. Even though she knew he was in the room, she hadn’t truly believed he’d been joining her until he actually _did._ For the most part, their physical relationship hasn’t moved too far past some fantastic kissing and tentative touches.

His teeth nip at her neck and he grins into her skin, pushing her back under the faucet. “I put a device on the door. Jammed it.”

 

She gasps as he tugs on her earlobe with his teeth, her hands automatically grasping him around his neck and finding their way into his hair. She tugs him up to catch him in a heated kiss, trying to level the playing field. This seems to do the trick and he groans as their bare chests press together.

 

As his dexterous fingers slip between them to fondle her breast, she moans loudly and all of her previous doubts fly out of the window. Her little noises seem to spurn his confidence forward, and his other hand finds its way between her thighs. Her knees go a bit weak as his thumb circles her clit, slowly and consistently.

 

He kisses her, swallowing her gasps as she trembles between him and the wall. She raises onto her toes, overcome with the sensations rushing through her. Just as the heat in her core builds to a nearly unbearable point, he detaches his mouth from hers to latch onto her nipple, circling it with his tongue.

 

“Oh my God,” she gasps out. “Fitz, I’m gonna—“

 

Just a few strokes later, her fingernails dig into his shoulders and her head rolls back to smack against the tile of the shower wall. The curtain flutters wildly as a burst of wind flows through the room. His free hand immediately flies behind her head, rubbing the back of her skull in concern. He kisses her cheek and then her mouth, water running down the angles of his face as her eyes flutter open.

 

“Was that…was that okay?” he asks a bit timidly. Jemma giggles slightly, grabbing him by the cheeks to kiss him firmly.

 

“That was _brilliant,”_ she assures him.

 

The device on the door releases a loud beep and Fitz winces, drawing her in for one last kiss. “That’s time, then.”

 

“There’s a time limit?” she whines. “But I was gonna…”

 

“It’s not a perfect device,” he shoots back, stepping out of the shower. She pops her head out to watch him towel off and dress. She bites her lip as she examines his hardness and he flushes under her gaze. “And don’t even tell me what you were gonna do. I’ll be too tempted to say sod it and jump back in there with you.”

 

She bats her eyes at him and he runs a hand over his face. “Don’t look at me like that!”

 

“Like what?”

 

“You know how,” he grumbles half-heartedly. He adjusts himself in his jeans, toweling off his hair, and presses a few buttons on the round device on the door. It pops off into his palm and he grins at her before leaving.

 

It takes Jemma quite a while to remember that she needs to shampoo her hair. By the time she does, the water has nearly run cold; she doesn’t really mind. She towels off quickly, rushing back to their room with every intention of showing Fitz exactly what she’d planned on doing in the shower.

 

The door opens to reveal Skye nestled into a corner of their bed, laptop in front of her. Fitz sits close beside her, gazing at the screen. Skye’s eyes widen when she sees Jemma’s state of undress, and she glances between Fitz’s wet hair and Jemma’s.

 

“Oh God,” Skye groans. “Guys—“

 

Fitz raises a hand to her, averting his eyes. “Let’s…not, okay? Skye, this is really important.”

 

Jemma flinches slightly. She gathers some clothing and heads for their little bathroom, reminding herself of what just occurred not fifteen minutes ago in the shower. She rubs at the base of her skull, soothing the ache from where she’d hit it on the wall.

 

 _He wants me. He wants me. He wants me._ She repeats it to herself like a mantra as she steps out in her joggers and t-shirt.

 

“What’s so important?” she asks, hoping her voice doesn’t betray her.

 

Skye flips the laptop. “These are the carvings. If you zoom in, you can see that they vary in depth and some look older than others. If Coulson is doing this, that means he’s not…it means something. I just don’t know what.”  


Jemma crawls onto the mattress and all thoughts of jealousy and insecurity leave her as she focuses on the puzzle at hand. She zooms in and tilts her head to the side, studying them carefully. Fitz must recognize some form of realization on her face.

 

“Jemma, what is it?”

 

“I’ve seen these before,” she breathes.

 

“How?” Skye asks, leaning forward. “Where did you see them?”

 

Jemma licks her lips, glancing anxiously between the two agents who trust Coulson so deeply.

 

“Hydra. Do you two know anything about a man named John Garrett?”

 

Skye and Fitz freeze, matching expressions of horror staring back at her.

 

“We know quite a bit,” Fitz finally says after a long beat. “What does he have to do with this?”

 

Jemma sucks in a shaking breath and prepares herself to explain.


	8. i think there's a flaw in my code

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jemma, Fitz, and Skye dig deeper into the mystery of Coulson's strange carvings, leading Fitz to some conclusions that Jemma isn't ready to face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bit of a lead-up to the next big plot point, so I apologize if it's a bit boring! I hope everyone has an amazing New Year :)

“John Garrett visited the Hydra facility I was at several times,” Jemma starts. Her breath hitches at the thought of what happened during those particular visits. She shakes herself and breaks out of these musings just as Skye interrupts her. 

“Wait, you never told me that during your intake session,” Skye reminds her. 

“I told you about Whitehall. He was really the man in charge. I didn’t intentionally leave out Garrett.” 

“Of course you didn’t,” Fitz says placatingly, glancing between her and Skye cautiously. “So what happened when Garrett visited? And what does it have to do with Coulson?” 

Jemma swallows and continues, her gaze shifting to the blankets. “One of the days that he was there, he showed me the same carvings. He wanted to know if I recognized them.” 

“But you didn’t,” Fitz fills in. Jemma nods. 

“I had no idea. I’d never seen them before in my life,” Jemma explains. “But apparently Whitehall was obsessed with them. He believed that they would bring him to the key.” 

“The key to what?” Skye asks. 

“The key to powered people,” Jemma tells her solemnly. “His experiments, all of it was to figure out how we got this way, and how he could replicate our abilities in others. He wants to create—he wants to build up some sort of Hydra army of powered people, I think.” 

“So Garrett worked with him to try to figure it out,” Fitz says. “And now Coulson is—making these carvings?” 

Jemma bites her lip and shakes her head. “It’s not just that. It’s that—apparently there was a project at SHIELD. Something called Tahiti, and—“ 

“Did you just say Tahiti?” Skye gasps. 

“Yes, you know of it?” 

“GH-325,” Fitz informs Jemma. “That drug I was telling you about—the one that brought Coulson back to life.” 

“Oh no,” Jemma sighs, pressing her fingers into her temples. “I don’t want to give you any inaccurate information. My time in the facility was—it was quite stressful, and the human memory often—“ 

“Tell us everything you think you remember,” Skye insists, voice steely. “We’ll figure out if it’s accurate or not but we need all the information we can get right now.” 

“Garrett had received intelligence that the patients in the Tahiti program were the ones—they were creating the symbols,” Jemma rushes out in one breath. “It lead Whitehall to believe that perhaps the alien drug was compelling the patients to create them.” 

“If the alien drug was compelling the patients to make the carvings, and the carvings are the key to powered people, then that would make powered people aliens,” Fitz says very slowly. Jemma licks her lips, gulping down a hard swallow. 

“Yes,” Jemma breathes. “Which is ridiculous, of course. I’m not alien.” 

“Like Thor,” Skye says, eyes alight. “You could be part—part whatever he is! He’s technically an alien, not a god.”

Jemma rolls her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous, I’m not Asgardian or any other type of alien. I was born in Sheffield, to two perfectly normal human people.” 

“Coulson was injected with the alien drug,” Fitz reminds them. “And he’s compulsively carving, which would prove at least part of Garrett and Whitehall’s theory.” 

“So was I,” Skye points out. “And I swear, I’m not running around carving these weird symbols into walls.” 

Fitz still seems unconvinced. “It may just be taking your body a while to catch up. Coulson was given the drug long before you were. You took it just a few months ago. I don’t think we can rule out the alien drug as the cause of the carvings—or even the cause of powered people.” 

Jemma gapes at him. “You’re not seriously insinuating that you think I’m part alien, Fitz.” 

Fitz grimaces. “No, I’m not insinuating that at all. I’m just saying that it might not be a complete impossibility.” 

“Skye,” Jemma says through gritted teeth. “Would you please give me a moment alone with Fitz?” 

Skye stares between them with nervous eyes. “Of course. I’ll just uh…I’ll catch up with you tomorrow.” 

She grabs her laptop and clicks it shut, scrambling out of the bed and darting for the door as if the room is about to explode. Fitz shifts nervously, looking all the world like he fears the same thing. 

“I didn’t mean to—“ 

“You think there’s something wrong with me,” Jemma accuses. 

“Your DNA—“ 

“My DNA could have been altered, by some sort of—some kind of chemical substance or radiation or something.” 

Fitz shakes his head. “Jemma, I poured over the documents from the investigation into that accident for months. You were the only survivor. How were you the only one to survive if there’s nothing…if there’s nothing special about you.” 

“We’re scientists, Fitz,” Jemma says, anger barely contained. It’s the first time she’s acknowledged that she’s still a scientist since she returned and his lips twitch briefly into a small smile. “There’s just something else there, perhaps some form of energy that we haven’t yet discovered. Perhaps the thing that turned me into this was alien, but that doesn’t mean I am.”

“It could have been dormant inside of you,” he says carefully. “And whatever explosion occurred—it activated it.” 

Tears burn behind her eyes and she stands, running her hands over her hair. “That’s not true.” 

“Jemma—“ 

“You think I’m not human!” she shouts, and a gust of wind blows so powerfully through the room that his desk immediately becomes a disaster. His tools are knocked over, blue prints scattering all over the floor and bed. Fitz rushes to his feet, holding his hands out in an attempt to soothe her. 

“Jemma, please. Calm down.” 

“I can’t!” Jemma shrieks, hands flying to her head. Her hair whips around her and she gusts the door open with one hand before she flings Fitz through it with the other. “Go!” 

“I’m not just going to leave you here,” Fitz shouts, storming back into the room. Jemma pushes past him, racing for the vaults she’d seen when she’d first studied the map of the base. 

Several agents get pushed out of the way by the wind storm that follows her, but Fitz maintains a brisk pace in pursuit. 

“Where are you going?!” he yells. 

“Where I should have been from the beginning!” she shouts back. She blows open the door to the first vault she finds, racing down the stairs and stopping violently in front of a protective barrier. 

Grant Ward grins up at her from his position on a cot. “Hello, Agent Simmons.” 

*** 

“She can’t go back down there,” Skye hisses. “He’s too dangerous.” 

“Well apparently you’ve been going down there,” Fitz fires back. “If he has information on Garrett and these carvings, then we need to use him.” 

“He’ll tell Coulson the second he gets a chance,” Skye argues. Jemma watches silently, perched on a stool in the lab. Not for the first time, she feels quite outside of all of it. 

“Well then maybe we should just ask him ourselves,” Fitz sighs, throwing his hands up. 

“You know we can’t do that.” 

Jemma stands, beginning to walk out of the lab. 

“Where are you going?” Fitz calls after her. 

“I’m going to the workout room,” Jemma shrugs. She’s already in her exercise clothes anyway. “This argument doesn’t involve me. Let me know when you’ve come to your decision.” 

She breezes out of the room with tense shoulders, rolling her head in an attempt to loosen them. When she reaches the workout room, she finds Hunter pounding on a punching bag, Mack holding it still for him. 

“Mind if I join you?” she asks more confidently than she feels. Hunter is a gem, but Mack has been weary of her from the moment he first met her. He looks her up and down before nodding. 

“Sure, Tornado. Just try to keep those powers to yourself, alright?” Mack says gruffly. 

“Of course,” she nods a bit meekly. Hunter winks at her and watches as she wraps her own hands. 

“Up for a spar?” Hunter asks, clapping his hands together. 

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Mack interrupts. Hunter brushes him off with a little wave.

“I can handle Tiny here.” 

“Size is no guarantee of power,” Jemma reminds him smugly. 

“Come on, then,” Hunter taunts with a grin. “Let’s have it.” 

Rolling her eyes, she joins him on the mat. Mack leans against the wall, crossing his arms and watching with curiosity. 

“Let’s see what May’s taught you.” 

Jemma hops from foot to foot for a few seconds before she makes her first move. He blocks her attempt at a punch and she lands a kick to his gut. He grabs her in an attempt to flip her, but she manages to wrap her legs around his waist and take him down with her. 

“Guess she doesn’t need superpowers after all,” Mack chuckles. “If only Bobbi had been here to see that.” 

Jemma hops up, lending him a hand with a thoroughly pleased little smile. “Perhaps I should stick to the punching bag, yeah?” 

“I was already tired,” Hunter defends. “I’d been going at the bag for a long time.” 

“Sure, buddy,” Mack laughs, clapping him on the back. “Hey Tornado, you need a spotter?” 

“Please,” Jemma smiles. Mack takes position behind the punching bag and Jemma lets her frustrations come out on the stuffed leather. 

The mysterious writing. 

WHACK. 

Memories of the facility. 

WHACK. 

Fitz and Skye and their secret little Bus team world. 

WHACK. 

Grant Ward in the basement. 

WHACK. 

These stupid powers she wants nothing to do with. 

WHACK. 

Fitz’s belief that she’s somehow alien. 

WHACK. WHACK. WHACK. 

It’s this last thought that tires her out, and she steps back from the punching bag with the sudden realization that perhaps this workout won’t help. Taking it out on an inanimate object, or even Hunter, won’t help her. 

The problem isn’t that she’s angry; the problem is that she’s terrified that Fitz may be right. If she’s somehow…part alien, then everything she’s ever known about herself will have been a lie. Where does she fit, if she’s not completely human? 

“The lab,” Jemma gasps out, hands on her hips as she pants. “I need to be in the lab.” 

Mack looks at her a bit curiously, tilting his head to the side like a gigantic puppy. “Alright then. You ever need a workout buddy, let me know.” 

Jemma grins and nods. “Thanks, Mack.” 

Once she’s showered and dressed, she heads back for the lab, hoping that Fitz and Skye have finished with their argument. When she enters, she finds Fitz alone. 

“Jemma,” he says, looking up from his work. “I’m glad you came back.” 

Jemma shrugs. “Where else would I go?” 

She busies herself with searching for her files in the lingering silence. She hears him fidgeting behind her and waits for him to speak. 

“I’m sorry,” he finally says quietly. “I didn’t mean to make it sound like I think you’re—that there’s something wrong with you.” 

She turns around to look at him, leaning against the bench and gripping it hard. “But you think that there might be.” 

“You’ve seen the tests,” he says gently, moving toward her. He slowly removes her hands from the counter, tugging them forward and clutching them gently in his own. “You’re different now.” 

Her eyes fall to their feet and she sighs heavily. “But we don’t know how it happened.” 

“No, we don’t,” he admits. “You’re just different now, and there’s nothing wrong with that.” 

Her forehead drops to his shoulder and she takes in a shaking breath. “I could have hurt you, Fitz.” 

“You didn’t,” he reminds her softly. “I shouldn’t have kept trying to talk it through, you were obviously upset.” 

“Ordinarily I can control it,” she says. “I—I don’t know if it’s safe for me to sleep in your room anymore.” 

“Don’t say that,” he whispers, tightening his grip on her hands. “I’m fine. You don’t belong in a vault.” 

“You heard Skye. Ward is down there because he’s dangerous. So am I.” 

“You’re nothing like Ward,” he insists vehemently. “Ward is a deluded son of a bitch. You’re a hero.” 

“I’m not a hero.” 

“You could be,” he says, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “If you let yourself.” 

She shakes her head and moves backward. “Enough of this. Did you and Skye come to a decision?” 

“She thinks we should go to Coulson first. It’s probably our best option. If we ask Ward, he’ll just tell Coulson anyway. At least this way it comes from us, on our terms.” 

Jemma nods. “That seems like the best decision, I think.” 

“So you’ll come with us?” 

“Yeah,” Jemma agrees. “Until then, will you help me take a look at this? I—I want to figure this out. We were always better together.” 

He moves to stare down at the files of her blood test results. He nods solemnly and logs on to the computer at his station, typing furiously. Fitz pulls up some simulations on the computer. 

“I put these together when you left for training the other day. In theory, this is what would have happened to your blood if similar radiation to what Bruce Banner experienced.” 

He types in a few commands and the DNA in front of them shifts, morphing into something different—it doesn’t look like human DNA, nor does it look like Jemma’s. She pinches the bridge of her nose.

“What if it wasn’t gamma radiation? Perhaps it was—perhaps I was exposed to alpha particles, or something similar?” 

Fitz grimaces, clicking around on the screen until he pulls up another program. “This would have been alpha particles.” 

When the DNA mutates, it still does not look like the files in front of her. Her breath quickens in a panic and his hand rests on the small of her back. 

“Hey, we’re going to work this out,” Fitz assures her. “We’ll figure it out.” 

Jemma takes a deep breath and nods. “We will. I know we will.” 

“We didn’t graduate at the top of the class for nothing.” 

“Youngest graduates in history,” she grins. 

“Exactly,” he smiles back. She kisses his cheek quickly and turns to her microscope, pricking her finger and letting a few beads of blood drop onto a glass slide. She positions the slide in her field of view and listens to Fitz grumbling to himself as he designs another simulation. 

Jemma Simmons has relied on science for answers for her entire life—that’s not about to change just because she’s capable of manipulating molecules. She adjusts her field of view and smiles. 

She glances up and finds Fitz watching her. He winks at her and she grins back.


	9. we keep falling for the lure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, folks, this one gets smutty at the end! I may need to up the rating of this fic? I don't really know the difference between M and E, so if anyone wants to educate me in the comments, please do :)

The three of them sit nervously in Coulson’s office, lined up in chairs across from his desk. May leans against the bookshelf behind him, watching them carefully.

 

“So, who wants to tell me what this is about?” Coulson asked amicably. Jemma still hasn’t quite figured out how he manages to stay so cool under pressure, but it’s a skill she certainly hopes to develop.

 

Jemma turns to Fitz on her left and Skye on her right; how she’s wound up, quite literally, in the middle of all of this, she’s not quite sure. She finds both of them staring expectantly back at her.

 

“Director Coulson,” she says, her voice shaking slightly. “I truly appreciate everything you’ve done for me.”

 

He smiles kindly. “Of course, Dr. Simmons. Like I said, we don’t leave one of our own behind.”

 

She takes a deep breath and resists the urge to close her eyes in anticipation. Instead, she averts her eyes and her gaze lands directly on May. This is even more nerve-wracking than looking Phil Coulson, Man Who Died and Came Back, Director of SHIELD, in the eyes while she tells him that they suspect he may be infected with some kind of mind-altering alien virus.

 

May crosses her arms and shifts. “Out with it, Simmons.”

 

“Well, you see, Agent Skye had some…concerns, and she came to me and Fitz given my skill set and…well, my powers.”

 

“And what were these concerns, Skye?” Coulson asks pointedly, staring down his protégé with a razor sharp gaze. Jemma is just happy that the attention is no longer focused on her. “Care to share them with the class?”

 

Fitz snorts and Jemma kicks him lightly, shooting him a sharp look. He has the good sense to straighten up, clearing his throat.

 

“I snuck in here,” Skye blurts out. “I was worried that you’d been acting weird, and I found your secret switch and your creepy drawings.”

 

“So she took a photo,” Fitz jumps in, recognizing the signs of Skye’s spiral. “She brought it to me and Jemma.”

 

“Technically I was really just trying to bring it to Jemma,” Skye clarifies. Fitz makes a noise of protest and she shushes him. “Do you have alien powers? I didn’t think so.”

 

“I don’t have _alien powers,”_ Jemma hisses. “You know how I feel about you saying that!”

 

“Well we don’t know where they came from, so right now, they _are_ alien!”

 

Fitz pinches the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “Skye, please. Not now.”

 

“Yes, Skye, not now,” May agrees. “You had no business breaking in to the Director’s office.”

 

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Jemma has to bite on the inside of her mouth to prevent herself from laughing. Coulson and May are both looking at Skye like they’re her disappointed parents. She half expects the “we’re not _angry_ we’re just _disappointed”_ speech she’d received so many times as a child after she’d inflicted chemical burns on the walls of her home.

 

“I was worried!” Skye defends. “Besides, I apparently had a good reason to be. Jemma had some information on those symbols.”

 

Coulson and May exchange a look and he leans forward with decidedly piqued interest. “You never mentioned them before.”

 

Jemma notches her chin up haughtily. “Yes well a lot has happened in the last two years. I left out some details that seemed unimportant. You never asked me.”

 

Coulson seems to concede this point. “What do you know about them?”

 

“The man who was running the Hydra facility where I was kept was named Daniel Whitehall,” Jemma explains as evenly as she can. “John Garrett came to visit the facility on several occasions. He was searching for the alien drug that brought you back to life, and later healed Skye. Whitehall believed that those markings, done by some candidates of an experiment at SHIELD, would be the key to discovering what exactly gives gifted people their abilities.”

 

Coulson watches her very carefully, and May remains as unreadable as ever as she pulls out a file from one of Coulson’s desk drawers and slides it in front of Jemma. The cover is an original SHIELD symbol, one she’d learned about in her early history classes at the Academy. Back when SHIELD was the SSR, it had a distinctly different eagle symbol.

 

But SHIELD became SHIELD many years ago, and Jemma can’t imagine why an SSR file would be of any use to her. Regardless, she opens it cautiously, her legs immediately going numb when she takes in the picture of Daniel Whitehall’s face.

 

It’s a visceral reaction, a symptom that she knows to associate with an on-coming panic attack. Fitz must immediately sense a change in her, since his brow furrows in concern and his hand hovers near her shoulder. It makes no sense, and her thoughts race to catch up even as her breathing grows shallow with anxiety. The photo is dated in the 1940s, the report filled out by Peggy Carter herself. Ordinarily she’d be excitedly showing everyone that _the_ Peggy Carter, founder of SHIELD, who _just so happens to be British,_ once held this in her hands. Instead, her fear of the man frozen in time in front of her paralyzes all of her usual instincts.

 

“This is impossible,” she whispers. Her trembling hands drop the file onto her lap. “I swear to you, this is the exact same man in that facility.”

 

“He was the last Hydra member captured by Agent Carter,” May informs her. “He was in SHIELD’s custody for a long time, but he escaped several years ago.”

 

“I don’t know how he reversed his aging,” Jemma says weakly, “but I promise, I’m not confused. I would recognize this man _anywhere.”_

Coulson folds his hands on the desk, staring intently at Jemma’s face. “You went through some very traumatic things, Dr. Simmons. Maybe you lost some of the details in the process.”

 

She slams the file onto his desk and pushes her chair back. “You don’t forget the face of the person who _tortured_ you.”

 

May puts a hand on Coulson’s shoulder, reaching the other one out toward Jemma. “You’re right, Simmons. Something isn’t adding up here, but it was Whitehall in that facility.”

 

Coulson looks up at her doubtfully. “Really, May?”

 

May nods tersely. “Yes. Simmons is right, she would never have forgotten his face.”

 

A brief gust of wind ruffles Jemma’s hair, just brushing against Skye in the process, but she fights to keep it under control.

 

“Whitehall believed that those markings were going to lead him to the answer,” Jemma says, voice shaking. “And he may have been right.”

 

Everyone in the room, including Fitz, stares at her incredulously.

 

“If you’ve been compulsively carving them, and other members of the testing program for the drug were doing it too, well then…”

 

Skye cuts her off. “But I’m not.”

 

“Maybe you will in time,” Jemma says. “Or you’re an exception or…this is an impossible experiment. We have an extremely limited sample size, no access to the drug that was used, and no access to any patients other than you two. What I’m saying is that whatever host body was used to create this drug may have been the body of a gifted. Someone…someone like me.”

 

Coulson immediately disagrees. “I saw that thing. It was not a human being.”

 

Jemma swallows, beginning to pace. Everyone else remains sitting, watching her puzzle through the problem.

 

“Is there any record of the other patients in this drug trial? If we could find them, see if they’d been doing anything similar…we could get a better idea of the connection between the alien drug and the compulsive carvings,” Jemma suggests.

 

Coulson turns to Skye. “Most of the files are buried deep in the Toolbox, but…”

 

“I’ll find them,” she assures him. “Just give me a few hours.”

 

“The three of you can go now,” Coulson says. Fitz leans forward, holding their ground for the first time during the meeting.

 

“Sir, we didn’t discuss the carvings. What’s going on?”

 

“I can’t get it out of my head,” he tells them quietly. “But May has been monitoring me, and I assure you, if I am anything less than lucid, she will handle it.”

 

May flinches, and Jemma doubts May’s actual ability to carry out any kind of attack on Coulson. She chooses to keep this to herself, though.

 

“We have to find the others,” May says clearly. “There has to be a way to stop this.”

 

Skye nods. “I agree. I’ll find the other TAHITI patients…”

 

“It’s a magical place,” Jemma whispers. Coulson’s expression shifts from neutral to horrified.

 

“Where did you hear that?”

 

Her brow furrows, tongue darting out to wet her lips as she concentrates on all of those memories she’s stomped on and buried. “I…I don’t know.”

 

“She wasn’t a TAHITI patient,” Fitz says immediately, standing to take his place beside her. One hand moves protectively in front of her body and she doesn’t understand his change in mood.

 

“Are we sure?” Coulson asks dubiously. “That seemed reflexive to me.”

 

“What is going on?” Jemma asks calmly. “I understand that you all have your secrets. This is SHIELD, after all, but if you suspect me of something then I’d like to defend myself.”

 

“Jemma, what exactly happened after the accident?” Fitz asks. His entire body is stiff and he looks at his teammates standoffishly. “Tell them everything that happened.”

 

“I…okay. Well I woke up in the rubble. Theresa, one of the biologists, was beside me and she appeared to be—made of stone. I reached out to touch her and she crumbled into dust. Everyone around me—they were all stone. Or broken stone, like shattered statues. I started to dig myself out. I was panicking, completely afraid and confused and that’s when Agent May found me. She took me by the arm and started running. She said I needed to get out there and that’s when all of the wind started. I couldn’t stop it and she sedated me.”

 

“What happened next?” May asks dully. The guilt in her eyes is too much for Jemma to bear so she turns away, looking at Coulson instead.

 

“I woke up with a team of agents. I thought they were SHIELD—Agent May obviously did too. I was in a car, a standard issue SHIELD SUV and they took me straight to the facility. They told me it was a medical unit where I would get treated for injuries sustained in the collapse. And then the whole thing started, all of the tests and poking and prodding…”

 

“What kind of tests?” Coulson demands. A sheen of sweat breaks out on his forehead and Jemma struggles to maintain her own composure in the face of his strange behavior.

 

Jemma tenses, fingers moving into fists at her sides. Her nerves are already on edge from the photo of Whitehall, the realization that he may have somehow slowed down the human aging process. She grits her teeth and presses on.

 

“I’ve already discussed this with Skye. But I assure you, none of them had _anything_ to do with the word TAHITI.”

 

“Were you ever injected with anything?”

 

She barks out a laugh. “Of course I was. Sedatives, stimulants, poisons—once they figured out what my ability was they wanted to test its limits. They wanted to test just how far they could bend me until I broke. Director Coulson, whatever is going on here…with these carvings, and Whitehall, all of it. They seem to be connected through one thing, and that’s you. Not me.”

 

Skye licks her lips. “Not necessarily.”

 

Jemma’s head whips to Skye and Fitz follows in tandem. “What do you mean?”

 

“We think Whitehall might be working with Cal,” Skye explains sheepishly. “And Cal is…Cal is my biological father.”

 

Jemma’s jaw drops. “What?”

 

“I know, I know,” Skye groans. “Not exactly the fairytale story I was hoping for either.”

 

“How can you be sure?”

 

“Ward,” Skye sighs. “He told me and I did some digging and it all…well, it all checks out. And it would explain his obsession with SHIELD, his revenge fantasies against Coulson.”

 

Jemma backs up. “This is all a lot of information, and we have none of what we were looking for. I’m—I need to go.”

 

“Jemma,” Fitz starts. She cuts him off by raising her hand.

 

“I _need_ to go,” she tells him heavily. “I can’t hold it off much longer.”

 

“I’ll come with you.”

 

“No,” she says sharply.

 

Jemma takes off out of the door, walking as quickly as she can through the base to find an area where she can explode. The buildup inside of her is painful, pressing in on her chest and ribs like a dropped weight. She dashes down the stairs, feet deftly trotting toward the Vaults. She skips right over Ward’s home in Vault D and swings the door open for Vault C. It’s completely empty and has become her space where she doesn’t have to worry about accidentally hurting anyone.

 

As soon as the door shuts behind her, she unleashes it all on the cement walls of the room. The force of her gusts blows her back, a rare occurrence in the years since she’s developed these abilities. A cyclone of winds forms in the center of the room; she is the eye of a storm and she can’t hold it back any longer. A small scream rips from her as her feet leave the ground unexpectedly. She angles her hands downward in an effort to stabilize herself, but this only serves to shoot her higher and create an ache in the bones of her arms.

 

The door of the vault flies open and Fitz comes darting into it like the loveable and self-sacrificing idiot that he is. She looks at him over her shoulder with terrified brown eyes.

 

“JEMMA!”   


“Get out!”

 

“No,” he says stubbornly. “Look at me, okay? Just look at me and focus on my voice.”

 

He has to shout to be heard over the howling, but he steps off of the stairs and into the madness without hestitation.

 

“Just take deep breaths for me, yeah? If you want to leave SHIELD right now, we’ll leave. If you want to lead this investigation, then we’ll lead it. You’re not trapped here, I promise. Nobody’s going to do anything to you that you don’t want them to.”

 

She sucks in sharp breaths through her nose, exhaling roughly through her mouth, and as he speaks she feels the pain inside of her lessen incrementally. Her feet lower toward the ground and when it finally ends, she collapses onto the floor. Fitz rushes for her instantly, gathering her into his arms.

 

“Shh, it’s okay,” he murmurs. “You’re okay.”

 

“Whitehall,” Jemma gasps out. “Fitz, he did—he did so many _unspeakable_ things and what if he did that because—how is he human? He hasn’t aged, he hasn’t—“

 

“Try not to think about him right now, okay?” he says. He hauls her onto his lap, his hands in her hair as she leans her cheek against his collarbone. “We’ll get him. He’ll pay for what he’s done, I promise you.”

 

Jemma nods against him. He’s never broken a promise to her and even though this feels impossible, she knows he won’t start breaking them now. He holds her for a long while and when her legs finally have the strength to stand, she leads him back to the lab.

 

Her insatiable desire to understand what’s happened to her grows with each passing second. If she doesn’t find an answer soon, she fears it just might kill her.

 

***

 

Skye enters the lab sometime in the late afternoon and Jemma hardly notices. She’s focused so intently on the simulation in front of her that the hacker startles her when she taps her on the shoulder.

 

“Hey. Sorry about earlier, things got a little out of control in there. Are you feeling up to talking about the TAHITI patients?”

 

Jemma nods. “It’s fine, Skye. Not your fault, I just got a bit overwhelmed is all. What do you have?”

 

Skye puts her tablet on the bench in front of them, opening up a file and showing her a photo. “This is one of the few TAHITI patients we could track down. He’s living on a farm with a family. Married, a kid, the whole shebang. And it seems like we’re not the only ones looking for him.”   


“Hydra,” Jemma mumbles.

 

“Right in one. Those guys really love to go after our sloppy seconds,” Skye attempts to joke. Jemma musters a weak smile and begins to look through the file, describing the TAHITI protocol and tests.

 

“Oh my,” Jemma gasps. “So this is TAHITI.”

 

Skye leans against the bench with crossed arms. “Yeah, not exactly pretty, is it?”

 

Jemma shakes her head, one hand covering her mouth. “This is torture.”

 

“And it’s what brought Coulson back to life,” Skye fills in. “The real question is why Whitehall seems to want it so badly when he seems to have already gotten immortality.”

 

“He can’t have attained immortality,” Jemma insists. “He’s slowed the aging process, or at least managed to slow the _appearance_ of aging. In fact, I’d say the second is more likely. He wants this drug, this protocol, not because of its properties. He wants it because it could lead him to the answer for a gifted army.”

 

“But the carvings are nonsense,” Skye points out. She closes the TAHITI patient file and clicks on the photo of Coulson’s drawings. “They’re just circles and lines, it makes no sense. It’s not computer code, not any kind of chemical formula or language…”   


“It could be a language,” Jemma contests. “Just not one that would be recognized here on Earth.”

 

“Okay,” Skye breathes. “So maybe it’s an alien language. But how does he plan on translating said alien language if nobody on this planet could understand it?”

 

“He thought we could,” Jemma realizes. “He thought Lincoln and I could recognize it.”

 

“Lincoln? Oh right, from the facility.”

 

“Exactly, from the facility. That’s why he kept bringing them to us. He thought that we knew something that we were withholding but we’d never seen it in our lives.”

 

Skye bites her lip. “Okay but what _else_ could this be?”

 

“Import it to the holotable,” Jemma demands suddenly, pushing herself away from the bench. Across the lab, Fitz turns away from his project and approaches them.

 

“What are you doing?”

 

“I think the carvings aren’t meant to be read flat,” Jemma explains hurriedly. Skye types quickly onto her tablet and the holotable springs to life. Jemma pushes the picture up in three dimensions and carefully flips it. “There.”

 

“It’s a map,” Fitz says. “It’s a city.”

 

“Now our only question is where,” Skye whistles. “I’m gonna run this by Coulson and start running a search of possible matches.”

 

“Make sure you check historical maps as well,” Jemma suggests. “These carvings could be…ancient.”

 

Skye sighs. “God, this job is so weird.”

 

Then she’s gone, leaving Fitz and Simmons to continue their research of her DNA with the weight of the map hanging over their heads.

 

***

 

“Did you find anything new in your simulations?” Fitz asks quietly as they lay in bed later that night. She shakes her head against his chest, squeezing her arms around his middle a bit tighter.

 

“No, not yet,” she huffs. “I’m getting rather frustrated if I’m honest. I always thought that if they just let me into the lab, let me work, I could solve it in a matter of hours.”

 

“Cut yourself some slack,” he murmurs, kissing her forehead lightly. “You’ve been through a lot, and this is a pretty complex problem.”

 

“It only took me forty minutes to solve that supposedly unsolvable equation in calculus, remember?”

 

“Yes, I do remember,” he grins into her hair. “And I’d like to remind you that I was right behind you.”

 

“Forty minutes and twenty two seconds,” she recalls with a pleased little smirk.

 

He grumbles something she can’t quite make out and she presses her cold toes against his calf.

 

“Oi!” he exclaims, leg darting away from her beneath the sheets. “Did you just take a bloody ice bath?”

 

“I’m just cold,” she whines.

 

This makes him frown, the expression he always gets when he’s going to become a bit of a mother hen. “Feeling any better?”

 

“Still quite fatigued from my little…outburst,” she admits. “And a bit sore as well. My wrists got a bit bent out of shape.”

 

He picks up the arm splayed across his middle and places soft kisses around her wrist. “You’ve gotta be more careful, Jemma.”

 

She rolls her eyes half-heartedly, made docile by his affections. “Next time I have an uncontrollable burst of power, I’ll be sure to be _careful_ about it.”

 

He snorts and drops her wrist back down on the bed, hand moving to grab the other one. He massages it lightly and she moans. “Mm, thank you.”

 

“Mhm,” he hums. “I meant what I said, you know.”

 

“About what?” she mumbles sleepily.

 

“About leaving SHIELD, if that’s what you want.”

 

“Oh Fitz,” she sighs. “It’s a nice idea, isn’t it? We could just go somewhere and live a quiet life. But…I just don’t know if that’s possible for me. Not anymore.”

 

“I know,” he concedes. “Not until Hydra is gone for good. Until then you’re not safe.”

 

“And neither are you,” she reminds him, eyes blinking open to stare up at him earnestly. “As long as they’re looking for me, they’ll be looking for you now. They know about the Academy and they saw us together.”

 

“I can handle myself, Jemma.”

 

“That doesn’t mean that I want you to have to,” she retorts. “You know, I used to think about it sometimes.”

 

“Think about what?”

 

“There was this cottage in Perthshire. We drove by it on holiday once and I just…for some reason, I really loved it. I’ve thought about that cottage a lot, as a place where we could have…”

 

“Could have?”

 

“Could have settled down,” she practically whispers, cheeks heating in embarrassment. “Back at the Academy and at SciOps, I would think of it and I guess I just never imagined a future without you by my side. I just didn’t know what it meant back then.”

 

He chuckles and she feels the vibrations in his chest tickle at her cheek. “I didn’t know either. Hey, you know…Perthshire is in Scotland.”

 

She doesn’t even have to look at him to imagine the cheeky, self-satisfied smile on his face. “I know where it is, Fitz.”

 

“Just saying, I never knew you thought about settling down in Perthshire. I’d surrendered to the idea of a life in Sheffield.”

 

She giggles, pressing herself up to look at him. “Really?”

 

“’Course I did. Like you said—I just never really imagined a future where you weren’t beside me.”

 

She reaches up, running a gentle palm down the side of his scruffy cheek. She presses a slow, soft kiss to his lips.

 

“Thank you,” she whispers in the space between their breaths.

 

“For what?”

 

“For saving me. For not…for not giving up on me.”

 

“What else was I gonna do?”

 

He says it so genuinely, as though there was no other option than fighting Hydra and Ward and anyone else who dared to get in between them. Her heart clenches as she stares into his eyes, and before she can stop herself, she’s swung her leg over his hips, pressing her chest into his and kissing him deeply. He gasps into her mouth, hands reaching up to rest on her hips.

 

“Jemma,” he pants when she breaks away for air. Her lips trail their way down his neck, pleased that he’s taken to sleeping without a shirt. “You’re not…”

 

“Don’t,” she cuts him off, lips hot on his collarbone. “I’m perfectly fine, Fitz.”

 

“Oh…okay,” he gasps out when she nips the skin just underneath his ear. “So, um..”

 

“Shh,” she giggles. Sure, she’s got a tired ache in her bones and she’s never felt more lost in her entire life, but here and now, she has Fitz and the warm heat of his body pressed against her. Her thoughts finally still for the first time in days as her fingertips trail down his bare chest to the waistband of his pajamas. His breath hitches rather violently in his chest and she can’t help but smile as she kisses her way down his stomach. She’s nearly reached his bellybutton when he suddenly yanks her upward and flips her over onto her back.

 

She squeaks in surprise and his hands creep up underneath the tank top she wears to sleep. He inches it up slowly, kissing and nipping at the skin of her abdomen as she shivers beneath him.

 

“You always have to win, don’t you?” she teases. He looks up at her without removing his mouth from her body, grinning against her ribcage.

 

“You know I do.”

 

His nose bumps against the bottom of her bra and he grumbles, sitting back to help her sit up and remove her shirt. His fingers deftly undo the clasp behind her back and he tosses it to the side in annoyance.

 

“Don’t know how you sleep in that,” he tells her as he lowers her back down onto the pillows. She opens her mouth to respond, but he quickly distracts her with his hands on her breasts, leaving her gasping rather than arguing. He runs his tongue over the peak, taking one of her nipples into his mouth as she arches her back to allow him easier access. She bites down hard on her lip to keep herself from moaning too loudly and alerting poor Skye to their activities in the next bunk over.

 

His other hand runs over her side, impatiently untying the string of her flannel pajama bottoms. He slides his hand inside, stroking her over the lace of her boyshorts. She can’t hold back the breathy gasp that escapes her.

 

Maybe it’s that her whole body feels ultra-sensitive after her explosion earlier in the day, or maybe it’s just because he’s that good, but she feels herself rapidly approaching climax as his fingers find her clit even through the barrier of material.

 

“Fitz,” she moans. “Fitz, I want you.”

 

He doesn’t seem to hear her, mouth switching from one breast to the other. A particularly pleasant suck has her bucking her hips wildly against his hand and he groans against her.

 

“Fitz, please,” she whines.

 

This seems to get his attention, his head snapping up to hers as his hand temporarily falters in its movements.

 

“Huh?”

 

She busies herself with awkwardly trying to wrench his pajamas off of his hips. “You. I want you now.”

 

“Now? Right…right now?”

 

“Yes,” she nods enthusiastically. “Not a minute later, actually.”

 

He gulps, Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. He coughs and looks to the nightstand. “I don’t actually know if I have any condoms—“

 

She cuts him off with a hand to his chest. “IUD, remember? Awkward Coulson sex talk?”

 

“Let’s not talk about him right now,” Fitz winces. She agrees immediately, pulling Fitz down for another heated kiss. She sucks his bottom lip into her mouth and he moans. She grins into him as he starts wildly kicking his pants all the way off. She wriggles out of her own beneath the sheets, deciding to skip an unnecessary step and shed her underwear as well.

 

And just like that, there’s nothing else between them. He lines up at her center and then pauses. She huffs in frustration and looks at him curiously. “What?”

 

“Have you uh, done this since—since—“

 

He gestures around him with a circling wrist and she furrows her brow. Then she understands his meaning. “Oh, since the powers thing? No, no I haven’t.”

 

He dives back down to kiss her and she pushes him back. “What if I hurt you?”

 

“You won’t,” he insists, rubbing a little circle on her cheek with his thumb. “If you don’t feel comfortable though, we can stop.”

 

She considers this for a moment, thinks about stopping this right here. But if she wants this future with Fitz, and god, she really does, she’ll have to set her fears aside at some point.

 

“As long as you trust me,” she settles on. He looks at her incredulously.

 

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

 

Then he pushes into her and she watches as his eyes flutter shut, mouth dropping open at the sensation of her surrounding him. She smiles slightly and rocks her hips upward experimentally, preparing herself for the possibility of wind or, god forbid, fire.

 

Like most things in life, they find an easy and wordless rhythm. She wraps her legs around his back, locking her ankles and creating a new angle that has her moaning and gasping with every thrust. His muscles tighten deliciously above her and she runs one hand through his hair, the other scratching lightly down the center of his chest.

 

“I’m almost…” she gasps.

 

“Me too,” he grunts out.

 

With the imminent threat of losing control of her powers seemingly nonexistent, she lets herself topple over the edge. She contracts around him and then he’s following her, gasping her name into her neck and pressing open-mouthed, sloppy kisses to her shoulder. The white-hot peak of her pleasure rips through her and the room shakes with a violent gust, several blue prints flying off of the desk as a framed poster of an artfully drawn Tardis slams against the floor. Fitz stays steady, unmoving as he holds her tighter, and she rides out the last waves of it with shaking breath and trembling thighs.

 

He rolls off of her and immediately begins laughing.

 

“What’s so funny?” she asks, but she’s giggling too.

 

“Pretty sure you broke my Tardis,” he chuckles. “And quite possibly destroyed the blueprints for the new and improved Night Night Gun.”

 

“Well I hope you can forgive me,” she grins. Her eyes threaten to slip shut and she forces herself to stand on shaking legs, heading to the bathroom to clean herself up. Fitz calls to her through the door.

 

“I was never particularly attached to that poster,” he teases. “Or those blueprints. Or anything, really. Everything in this room is expendable, other than you.”

 

She grins into the bathroom mirror, eyes alight and cheeks flushed.


	10. falling from these stars again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jemma accompanies Coulson and Skye on her first field mission after a woman is murdered. When things go awry, Fitz questions Coulson's leadership methods.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, friends! Finally updated this. The new plan is to post for this fic every Thursday :)

Jemma, Skye, and Fitz walk to the briefing room together, surprised to find only Coulson and May waiting for them.

 

“Are we waiting on everyone else?” Skye asks.

 

Coulson shakes his head. “This is strictly need-to-know.”

 

When Coulson puts up a photograph on the briefing screen, Fitz flinches and Jemma goes completely motionless beside him. It’s a body, a woman’s corpse, carved with the same markings that Coulson has been making. They’re slightly different though—perhaps a different piece of the map, and Jemma and Skye meet eyes across the table with a heavy glance.

 

“This woman was attacked and killed in her home,” Coulson explains solemnly. “The killer apparently carved these markings into her while she was still alive.”

 

“A TAHITI patient?” Skye asks.

 

“We have reason to believe she was a TAHITI patient,” Coulson confirms. “She was given a new identity, though—so it’s hard to really tell. May and I went this morning and checked out her residence. We have reason to believe that this man is our killer.”

 

A picture of an intimidating man is projected on the screen. “This is Sebastian Derik. He was a TAHITI patient. The only other known living TAHITI patient is Hank Thompson.”

 

Another picture of a friendly-looking blonde man pops up on the screen.

 

“If Derik is hunting down the surviving TAHITI patients, then Hank will be next,” Fitz observes.

 

“Exactly,” Coulson says gravely. “We’ll be taking a team to Hank’s house. He lives in the Midwest on a farm. Family, kids, the whole shebang.”

 

“Skye found him,” Jemma says. “She just showed me his file a few days ago.”

 

Skye nods. “I’d like to be on the op, sir. I know everything there is to know about Hank Thompson.”

 

Coulson nods his assent. “Alright, then. Skye, Trip, Simmons, and I will be going to the Thompsons’ farm. We’ll secure Hank and his family, and then hopefully apprehend Derik while we’re at it.”

 

Fitz flexes his fingers anxiously. “Sir? I’d like to be on the op as well.”

 

“We need you here, running comms. We need to keep everyone else in the dark on this one until we figure out exactly what this writing means,” Coulson orders.

 

Jemma glances at Fitz warningly, but he doesn’t heed to her apparent discomfort. “I don’t want Simmons going into the field without me.”

 

“Simmons?” Coulson asks. “Do you think you can handle this?”

 

Jemma glares at Fitz. “Of course I can, sir.”

 

“Good. You’re technically not an agent, so I can’t order you to do anything.”

 

“I understand, sir. I’m perfectly prepared to go on this mission,” she assures him. Fitz looks away from her and clenches his jaw in frustration. Coulson dismisses the team to get ready for the op and Jemma is the first one out of the briefing room.

 

“Jemma? A word?” Fitz asks through gritted teeth.

 

She nods briskly and leads the way to a particularly low-traffic hallway. “What was that about?” she demands.

 

“You shouldn’t be going on a field mission without me,” he answers immediately.

 

Jemma snorts. “You can’t be serious.”

 

“I’m dead serious!” he objects. “Jemma, you’re not a field agent. You’re a scientist.”

 

“I’ve been training!” she defends.

 

“You’ve been training for a few weeks,” he fires back. “The rest of the ops agents spent _years_ training.”

 

“Skye’s only been training for a year now,” Jemma immediately counters. “And she doesn’t even have _superpowers.”_

He pinches the bridge of his nose and screws his eyes shut. “I don’t—I know you can handle yourself but I don’t want you to have to.”

 

This seems to sap some of the fight from her, and she leans heavily against the wall behind her. “Fitz, I’ll be alright.”

 

“You spent years running and fighting for your life,” he explains hoarsely. “I thought bringing you back here, to the base, that it would—that it would keep you safe. You wouldn’t have to do that anymore.”

 

She reaches out and grabs his free hand, causing him to drop his other one from his face as he opens his eyes to look at her. “Until we catch Whitehall and figure out what exactly I am, I can’t stop. I think we both know that.”

 

He sighs. “I know. I just—I wish I could stop all of this. Take you away from all of it.”

 

She smiles sadly and presses a soft kiss to his lips. “I know, Fitz. I wish that too. But this is our reality, and there’s nobody else that I would want to face this with.”

 

This gets a little smile from him, and she wraps her arms around his waist to bury her face in his neck.

 

“You have to promise me that you won’t do anything stupid,” he murmurs into her hair. She nods against him.

 

“I promise,” she says. “I’ll be back before you know it, Fitz.”

 

Her hands snake up around his neck as she pulls back to look him in the eyes.

 

“Come back to me, yeah?” he says. He attempts a smile but it falls flat. She nods rapidly and laces one hand into the curls at the base of his neck.

 

“Always,” she whispers rather fiercely, raising up on her toes to tug him into another kiss. He responds enthusiastically, hands grabbing at her hips and pulling her as closely as he can.

 

Skye clears her throat and separates them some minutes later. “Jemma, we’ve gotta suit up. Wheels are up in fifteen.”

 

Jemma nods and presses a quick kiss to Fitz’s cheek even as her face colors in embarrassment. “See you at the jet?”

 

“Of course,” he agrees. “Don’t forget the vest.”

 

She rolls her eyes. “I don’t need a vest. I can stop bullets, Fitz.”

 

“Jemma—“

 

“I’ll make her wear the vest,” Skye interrupts with a fond smile.

 

“Skye—“

 

“Hey, no arguments young lady,” Skye barks teasingly. “Until Bobbi is up and running, I’m your SO.”

 

“You are not,” Jemma sighs. “May is my temporary SO.”

 

“But she’s not coming. And she was my SO first so you’re like…my step-sister.”

 

Jemma rolls her eyes and grabs Skye’s elbow to tug her along toward the lockers.

 

“Hey Fitz! Fix your hair!” Skye calls out to him over her shoulder. He glares at her, but as soon as she’s out of sight, his hands come up to flatten the places that Jemma left in disarray.

 

***

 

“We’re gonna need to design you a super suit,” Skye mumbles to Jemma as they trail after Coulson toward the Thompsons’ front door. Trip stays behind in the quin jet, prepared for a getaway.

 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jemma hisses back. Coulson glances back at them sharply.

 

“Ladies, please.”

 

Skye chokes back a giggle and it sets Jemma off, too. Coulson just heaves a long-suffering sigh and raises his hand to knock on the door. “Please try to look like responsible adult agents, you two.”

 

They pull themselves together just as the door swings open to reveal Hank Thompson.

 

“Hi there,” he greets, eyes widening as they take in the jet on his front yard. “How…how can I help you?”

 

“I’m Agent Phil Coulson, FBI,” Coulson says, flashing the false badge that Skye had created. “These are my colleagues, Agent Jemma Simmons and Skye Poots.”

 

“Fucking Fitz,” Skye curses under her breath. “Never should have told him that.”

 

“What exactly do you want from me?” Hank says defensively.

 

“We’re here to protect you,” Coulson says evenly.

 

“We received word that someone may be trying to hurt you,” Skye jumps in. His gaze flickers to her and then back to Coulson.

 

“Why would someone want to hurt me?” Hank asks, shifting uncomfortably against the door. His hand hovers at his temple and he grimaces harshly. “Agh.”

 

“Mr. Thompson, are you in pain?” Jemma asks, stepping forward. “I’m a doctor. I can help you.”

 

“I—you’re not the FBI,” he chokes out. His eyes lock on Coulson and he lunges forward. “You’re SHIELD.”

 

Jemma’s hand flies up to gust him backward, but Hank persists. He shouts to his wife about “getting the gun” and Skye quickly draws her own and points it at him. Coulson stands with his hands up.

 

“We’re here to help you,” he says calmly. “Are you remembering TAHITI?”

 

“It’s a magical place,” he gasps, hands kneading into his temples once more. “What is happening to me?”

 

“We need to get you and your family out of here,” Skye says firmly. “We will help you. I promise.”

 

A loud female scream echoes through the farmhouse and all four of them freeze.

 

“My wife,” Hank breathes. He takes off running into the house and Coulson grabs onto his gun, pursuing him. Skye takes off running down the porch and around the back of the house, Jemma turning the other direction.

 

“If you see Derik, take a shot,” Coulson barks over the comms. “Or—a gust. Or whatever. Just take him out.”

 

When Jemma and Skye collide at the back of the house, the Thompsons are nowhere to be found—but the door to the barn swings shut and they exchange a look before taking off in that direction. Coulson bursts through the back door of the house and follows.

 

The women bust through the door, Skye’s weapon drawn and Jemma’s hands raised, only to find Derik standing in front of the Thompsons with a large knife in his hand.

 

“SHOW ME WHAT YOU’VE SEEN!”

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hank pleads, placing himself in front of his wife and son. “Please, let them go. Whatever you want, take it from me. Not from them.”

 

“Derik, let them go,” Skye says loudly. “They don’t have what you want. We both know that. You’re looking for answers.”

 

“I might be able to help you get them,” Coulson adds. “But I’ll only do that if the Thompsons walk out of here, unharmed, right now.”

 

“Get out!” Derik barks at the Thompsons. They scurry out of the barn and Derik turns his gun on the agents. “How do you know what I’m looking for?”

 

“That compulsion to carve—I have it too,” Coulson explains evenly.   


“You did this to me,” Derik growls. “You put me through this, you made me this!”

 

“I am so sorry,” Coulson chokes. “I truly am. More sorry than you could possibly imagine.”

 

“Hurting these people isn’t going to give you the answers,” Skye says.

 

“I need the other pieces,” Derik gasps out. He looks like a man on the brink, and it’s an expression Jemma is familiar with. “I _need_ them.”

 

“We really can help you,” Jemma says softly. “I was like you, once. Coulson and this team have really helped me. I’d like to return the favor.”

 

He just stares at her blankly and then lunges for Coulson with his knife. Jemma’s hands fly out even as Skye discharges her gun. Jemma sends him flying up onto the loft of the barn and he crashes with a loud thud against the wood.

 

“Do you think he’s unconscious?” Coulson asks.

 

Jemma shakes her head. “It’s hard to tell, but I should go up there.”

 

“You need backup,” Skye insists.

 

“If he’s still conscious I may be the only one who can stop him right now. I can do this. You trusted me on this mission,” Jemma says, directing her last appeal to Coulson. “So let me do what I can.”

 

She climbs the ladder and sees no sight of him, until he’s suddenly leaping out from behind her and pressing his knife to her neck.

 

“JEMMA!” Skye screams.

 

For a fleeting moment, all Jemma can think about is how worried Fitz must be, monitoring their comms signals back on the base. She wishes she could talk back to him, but they’re too far out of range for that. Her mind goes completely blank as she tries to puzzle her way out of this particular situation.

 

Then it clicks, survival instincts surging back. Derik seems to have forgotten that her power doesn’t come from a weapon. Even with her hands pinned to her sides, she manages to twist her palm against his knee, concentrating as hard as she can on sending a high-pressured burst of oxygen onto his leg.

 

A satisfying crack echoes in the barn and he releases her. Her brief moment of victory is transitory—he strikes out with his knife and slices her across the abdomen.

 

“AGH!” she shouts out, crumbling to the ground. She hears Skye rushing the ladder and Coulson shooting from below, but his arms are coming down toward her with the knife in his hand. She thinks it must be over, and she gazes down at the busy trains arranged in the barn. They’re just like the carvings, each piece of track and little model house a strategically placed clue.

 

“It’s the map,” she whimpers. “Derik, look, the map, the last piece—“

 

He’s so enraged, so out of his mind, that he doesn’t hear her. With the last of her strength, she seeps all of the oxygen that she can from his lungs. He’s dead in moments.

 

“Skye, the map. The map is right there.”

 

“Shh, Jemma, I know, I see,” Skye soothes, tugging Jemma’s head into her lap. “Coulson, we need Trip on medical! Right now!”

 

The last thing she sees before it all goes black is Sebastian Derik’s lifeless eyes, Skye’s voice begging her to stay awake.

 

She didn’t wear the vest.

 

***

 

“She wasn’t ready!” Fitz shouts. “You knew she wasn’t ready, we _all_ knew she wasn’t ready!”

 

“Fitz, you need to calm down,” Skye says, attempting to placate him, but he’s ragingly furious as Bobbi treats Jemma’s wounds in the other room.

 

“Calm down?!” he asks incredulously. “You’re really telling me to _calm down_?”

 

“She got hurt,” Coulson says rather plainly. “That’s a part of this job, Fitz. You know that.”

 

“It _shouldn’t_ be a part of her job here,” Fitz snaps. “She’s a bloody scientist, alright?”

 

“She’s a gifted,” Coulson counters. “Derik would have caused a lot more damage if we didn’t have Simmons there.”

 

“You don’t even call her agent,” Fitz growls. “Because she _isn’t one_! This is exactly like what you did with Skye. And with me! ”

 

“Excuse me?” Skye butts in. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

“We had no business leaving the Bus in Peru!” he yells. His hands clench and unclench into fists at his sides as he paces around. “You getting shot was on me, I never should have let you go into that house, but we shouldn’t have been out in the field like that! We were completely unprepared and you were our commanding officer!”

 

“You both were willing,” Coulson replies, barely keeping his cool.

 

“I was a man with a bloody death wish!” Fitz shouts. “I had nothing left to lose and you saw that in me. You took advantage of it, just like you did with Skye.”

 

Skye swallows hard and looks away. He has a point that she’s not ready to face. Coulson brought meaning to her life, gave her some semblance of belonging and family—but that also doesn’t mean he hadn’t been reckless about it, and his relentless pursuit for his own secret truths had nearly cost them their lives, and likely would again.

 

“Now I do have something to lose,” Fitz continues, whirling around to stare down the Director. “And I’m sure as hell not going to let you take her from me with your half-assed missions. She’s done doing your dirty work.”

 

“That’s her decision to make!” Coulson says, voice raising for the first time in the conversation. “You’re not her commanding officer, Agent Fitz. You’re her boyfriend. Don’t make me Section 17 both of you.”

 

Fitz’s jaw drops in anger. “Good luck with that. I’m sure you’ll run a great organization without the head of your science department and without your precious little superhero you think you’ve created.”

 

“Fitz!” Skye gasps. “You need to stop, before you say something you’re really going to regret.”

 

Bobbi appears in the doorway, face completely impassive. Her limp is nearly gone, and Fitz supposes she’ll be back in the field soon. Perhaps she’ll be a more responsible supervising officer for Jemma. She’s had to have heard the argument, but she makes no indication of it.

 

“Fitz, Jemma is asking for you,” she says. “And if we could keep the shouting to a minimum, that would be great. She’s in pain and she needs to rest.”

 

All three of them manage to look properly abashed and Fitz brushes past them to take his place at Jemma’s side.

 

“Hi Fitz,” she slurs slightly. He musters up a smile and sits beside her, grabbing her hand.

 

“Hey you,” he says gently. “You wouldn’t have gotten hurt if you’d just worn the damn vest, Jemma.”

 

“Can we not do this right now?” she sighs. “Please. I’m so tired.”

 

“Alright,” he concedes. “But we’re going to have to talk about your complete disregard for your own safety at some point.”

 

“Your very loud conversation tells me that you had a similar disregard at some point,” she sasses back. “So perhaps we should also discuss that.”

 

He rolls his eyes and reaches up to kiss her lightly. “I just need you to be okay, Jemma. Please. I heard Skye scream your name and then the comms went dark. I had no idea what happened to you—it was over an hour before I heard anything. Then they wheeled you out, completely unconscious, and—“

 

“I’ll be just fine,” she assures him. “Bobbi did a great job treating the wound and it’s mostly a surface injury. It just smarts something awful.”

 

“Well, your accelerated healing rate will hopefully help out.”

 

“Mhm,” she hums. “Did Skye say anything about what we found in the barn?”

 

He nods. “It was the last piece of the map. Apparently Thompson didn’t even realize what he was making. It wasn’t as compulsive as the others.”

 

“And is Derik…”

 

“Derik is dead,” Fitz says softly. She inhales sharply and shuts her eyes tightly.

 

“I’m still not used to it,” she whispers. “It’s not—I can’t ever let it go.”

 

“I know,” he says, running a hand over her hair in a comforting gesture. “That’s what makes you human, Jemma. It’s okay that it hurts.”

 

She snorts. “Unless I’m not human at all.”

 

“Hey,” he says. “Don’t do that. We’re still going to figure it out.”

 

“I’m starting to become afraid of the answer,” she admits. Tears glisten in her eyes and his heart twists. “But I still need to know.”

 

“No matter what the answer is, I’ll be right beside you. The whole damn time.”

 

Her lips quirk upward. “The whole damn time?”

 

“Yep,” he says simply. He squeezes her hand. “You should get some rest.”

 

“I will soon,” she says, eyes blinking sleepily up at him. “I can’t believe you yelled at the Director of SHIELD.”

 

He has the grace to look a little sorry. “You know how I can be.”

 

“The infamous Leo Fitz temper,” she teases. “But Coulson had a point, Fitz. You’re not my commanding officer or the boss of me. You’re my boyfriend. I made the decision to go into the field today, and I made the choice to confront Derik.”

 

“You don’t have enough training,” he says. “You got hurt, and you shouldn’t have. This entire mission was because of Coulson’s problems, not yours. I don’t want you to be collateral damage in his personal issues, Jemma.”

 

“It’s not just about him,” she argues. “I’d seen those carvings before. If they have something to do with how I got these powers, and if they lead us to what Hydra is planning to do with…gifted people, then it very much involves me. I may not have training but I have experience.”

 

“Not enough,” he says weakly.

 

“It has to be enough,” she tells him, reaching up to put a hand on his cheek. “I’m really trying to figure out where I fit. I can’t just hide in a lab anymore. I’m capable of helping save the lives of more agents, of more people. I can do that from the lab but I can also do it in the field and I can’t ignore that anymore. If it hadn’t been me today, it would have been Skye or Coulson, and their injuries could have been worse, fatal even. I had an advantage that they don’t have.”

 

He inhales roughly. “I obviously can’t change your mind on this, can I?”

 

“You’re the one who thought I could be a superhero,” she reminds him. He smiles slightly.

 

“I’ve already told you, you were already a superhero. Your costume just happened to be a lab coat and goggles.”

 

“As long as the mission leads back to Whitehall, I have to be out there,” she tells him. “What he did to me—to all of the others—Fitz, he has to die.”

 

He gulps and shuts his eyes before nodding. “Alright. I get it. But once this is over, we’ll…re-evaluate, won’t we?”

 

“Of course we will,” she practically whispers, dropping off into sleep. “I don’t think I’m cut out for an Avengers lifestyle.”

 

“Maybe we should try to build me an Iron Man suit.”

 

“No, Fitz.”

 

He chuckles and kisses her cheek. “Get some rest, Jemma. I’ll be right here, okay?”

 

She nods and drifts off into sleep. He watches her face intently, looking for signs of discomfort and pain. When he looks up through the glass, he meets Skye’s eyes, her hand on the clear wall.

 

They exchange a heavy look and then she turns and walks away.


	11. add another stone to the walls I built around you (to keep you safe)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After healing from her injuries, Jemma dives back into training with a newly-recovered Bobbi as her S.O. Bobbi is a good teacher and provides some valuable advice for in and out of the field. Meanwhile, Fitz finds something unusual in a biopsy of Jemma's tissue, and a man who can turn himself into any material is on SHIELD's list.

Bobbi twirls her batons, pacing in front of Jemma where she sits on the mats.

 

“So what do _you_ think went wrong on the mission?” Bobbi asks. Jemma rolls her neck and sighs.

 

“I was impulsive,” Jemma sighs. “I was worried he was going to hurt himself or someone else. He needed to be stopped and I seemed to be the only one who could do it.”

 

“That’s not how it works here,” Bobbi reminders here. “We work as a team. We strategize. We—“

 

“Go running head-long into creepy mansions in Massachusetts?” Jemma smirks. Bobbi shoots her a look.

 

“That was different.”

 

“And how was that, exactly?” Jemma teases. “Because all I saw was SHIELD making some pretty irrational decisions.”

 

“Hey! We saved your ass,” Bobbi says, gesturing with a baton. Jemma holds her hands up in surrender.

 

“Point,” Jemma concedes. “And I really do appreciate it, you know.”

 

“I know,” Bobbi says simply. “So we’ve done your strength training, we had our tri-hourly visits from Fitz—anything else you want to do before you head back to lab duty?”

 

“I need to practice with my—powers,” Jemma requests shyly after a beat. “I think that’s what went wrong. I haven’t really _fought_ with them. Only as a form of self-defense, trying to run away, and I think that I need to—to refine the way that I use them.”

 

“You need to hone your instincts,” Bobbi agrees. “We can do that.”

 

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Jemma says, twirling her ponytail nervously. “You’ve already been hurt because of me, and—“

 

Suddenly, Bobbi raises her shirt and points at a mangled scar on her ribcage. “2010. A mission in Serbia gone horribly wrong.”

 

She turns and shows Jemma a long scar down her spine.

 

“2012, a mission in Alaska, also gone horribly wrong.”

 

“Okay, okay,” Jemma huffs. “I get it, you’re a warrior goddess.”

 

“Damn straight I am,” Bobbi grins. “And if you think for one second that I can’t hold my own against a human storm cloud, you’ve got another thing coming.”

 

“I am not a storm cloud!”

 

“Mack calls you Tornado,” Bobbi smirks. Jemma narrows her eyes.

 

“I have not signed off on that nickname.”

 

“Nobody signs off on Mack’s nicknames. How do you think I wound up as _Mockingbird?”_

“And how did you earn that, exactly?” Jemma asks, hopping up to her feet.

 

“Honestly? I can’t even remember,” Bobbi shrugs. “Alright, give me your best, Tornado.”

 

Jemma rubs her hands together swiftly, creating a small burst of flame between her palms with a challenging quirk of an eyebrow. “Tornado doesn’t cover it,” Jemma chuckles. Then she extinguishes the fire.

 

“What, you’re not going to throw fire at me?” Bobbi says. “I was kind of looking forward to that.”

 

“Don’t let her get under your skin,” Hunter calls to Jemma from the doorway. “She loves to do that.”

 

Bobbi shoots him a glare, and while she’s distracted, Jemma gusts her backward. Bobbi rolls into it easily, flipping and landing on her feet.

 

“She also loves to do that,” Hunter points out. “She’s big on the flipping.”

 

Bobbi turns a baton over in her hands and takes a step toward Jemma. “You need to concentrate. Evaluate my weaknesses.”

 

“Commitment!” Hunter shouts out. “That’s a big one!”

 

“Shut it, Hunter!” Bobbi snaps, but it doesn’t really have teeth. “Just focus, Jemma. It can’t all be instinct. The dividing line between good fights and great fighters is experience.”

 

Jemma nods in understanding and beckons Bobbi to continue with one hand. Her S.O. grabs a hold of her arm and has it twisted behind her back in no time at all.

 

“Focus,” Bobbi says near her ear. “Think it through.”

 

Last time she’d been in this position, she’d gusted Derik’s leg so hard it broke the bone, but that didn’t really afford her the escape she needed. She takes a deep breath and twists her wrists to point her palms at the floor; namely, she focuses intently on the air beneath Bobbi’s feet. A powerful gust shoots Bobbi upward, loosening her grip on Jemma’s arm and allowing the smaller agent to fling her through the air. Bobbi lands on the ground and rolls back onto her feet with a proud smile.

 

“Very good! See, that was creative problem solving. If you did that to someone like Hunter or Mack, they’d be on their ass,” Bobbi says encouragingly. “Let’s keep going.”

 

They keep at it for another half an hour, but eventually Jemma has to hold her hands up in surrender. “I can’t keep going,” she pants. “I’m exhausted.”

 

“Fair enough,” Bobbi agrees, tossing her a bottle of water as she opens her own. “You did really good, Jemma. I’m impressed.”

 

“Thank you,” Jemma mumbles, suddenly feeling rather shy. “I just want to be prepared, next time. I don’t want Fitz to worry, and—“

 

Bobbi snorts. “You could be in a full suit of body armor and he’s still going to worry. I know what Hunter is capable of, and every time he goes out on a mission, I’m worried. It doesn’t stop just because someone is good at what they do.”

 

Jemma swallows and considers this. “How do you do it? Being in a—relationship, when your life is so dangerous?”

 

“Oh, we fight,” Bobbi tells her flippantly. “ _All_ the time. He thinks I’m detached, I think he’s incredibly reckless. We fight really hard against each other, but not as much as we fight for each other.”

 

“Does it ever drive you crazy?” Jemma asks, leaning in conspiratorially. “Doesn’t he ever just…push too far? Make you feel like he thinks you’re not capable?”

 

Bobbi laughs loudly and pats Jemma on the back. “Oh, he certainly _tries._ Fitz isn’t trying to make you feel incompetent. It’s that _he_ feels incompetent. You’re qualified to go on missions that he just…isn’t. He can’t come along to protect you, he can’t be there to have your six. I think that scares him.”

 

Jemma crinkles her nose. “Wow, that’s…quite insightful of you.”

 

“I’m incredibly observant. One of my many strengths,” Bobbi says with a grin. “I’m gonna hit the shower. See you later.”

 

Jemma watches her go, wiping at her neck and face with a towel.

 

“There you are,” Fitz greets. He leans over to peck her cheek but seems to think better of it, backing away with a wrinkled nose. “And very sweaty.”

 

“What is it with you and your aversion to all bodily fluids?” she asks. “It’s perfectly natural, Fitz.”

 

“We’re not getting into this again,” he huffs. “I was coming to find you, I think I found something in your tests.”

 

“Really?” she asks excitedly. She wraps her towel around her neck. “Let’s go, then.”

 

He grabs her by the shoulders and turns her around, redirecting her toward their bunk. “At least go change.”

 

“Why?” she asks, feeling a bit indignant. “Bobbi went to the showers and I feel weird going in with other people.”

 

“Ah, that’s not true,” he says cheekily. She barely manages to hide her grin.

 

“Ugh, Fitz! I’m serious, this is important. A little sweat isn’t going to destroy your _pristine workspace.”_

“I know you’re saying that sarcastically, but I appreciate the acknowledgement that my desk is far cleaner than yours,” he smirks. “And for the record, it’s not a sweat issue. It’s a…yoga pants issue.”

 

“And what exactly is a yoga pants issue?” Jemma asks, amused.

 

“It’s, ah, a…well, it’s a lab tech plus yoga pants problem,” he winces, rubbing the back of his neck. “Y’know how I quite like those on you?”

 

“Yes,” Jemma says slowly. “But I don’t see how that’s a problem. Oh, don’t tell me…”

 

He screws up his face apologetically. “Afraid so, Simmons. I overheard a few of the male lab techs talking about you. One of the females, too, actually.”

 

Jemma huffs through her nose. “How ridiculous!”

 

“I don’t think it’s so ridiculous,” Fitz says, confused. “A bit ridiculous you’d assume all of our techs are straight, actually—“

 

“Not about that, Fitz!” she sighs. “I’m just a bit offended that any of them would talk about me like that, regardless of gender. I’m a professional. And so are they!”

 

“And a superhero,” he grins mischievously. “I could point out which ones were doing it and you can gust them around to your heart’s content?”

 

She considers this option. “Oh I don’t know, I wouldn’t want to break the rules.”

 

“We technically don’t have any rules against using superpowers on lab techs,” Fitz clarifies. “We never really had a need for one.”

 

A slow smile spreads on her lips and she bumps her hip against his. “Alright, I’m in.”

 

He laughs, grabbing her hand in his and leading her back into the lab. “Revenge before or after we go over my notes?”

 

“After,” she says decisively. “I’m curious to see what you’ve found.”

 

“It could be nothing,” he prefaces nervously. “I don’t want you to get too excited or anything, but it seemed like it might just be something.”

 

She squeezes his hand and shoots him a grateful smile. “Thank you, Fitz. I know how hard you’ve been working to help, and I’m not spending as much time in the lab as I’d like to.”

 

“Well, no one is forcing you out,” he mumbles under his breath. Jemma doesn’t miss the underlying bitterness in his tone.

 

“Fitz…”

 

“I’m just saying, we could use your help here,” Fitz says, detaching from her hand to shuffle through his notes. He continues speaking before she has a moment to interject. “Anyway, I ran a deep tissue analysis of the biopsy we took.”

 

She makes a mental note to talk to him later about his needs in the lab and turns her full attention to the matter at hand. “What did you find?”

 

“That’s the thing,” he says. “I’m not actually sure, but I know it’s something that doesn’t belong there.”

 

She reads over his notes, looking at the breakdown of the components within her blood and tissue.

 

“What the hell is that?” she gasps, pointing at the exact figure he’s talking about.

 

“Exactly,” Fitz says, leaning against the counter and crossing his arms over his chest. “I’ve never seen it before. I’ve started searching databases and recently published papers looking for any sign of it, but so far, I’ve got nothing.”

 

“It’s like…an entirely different element. A component we’ve never seen,” Jemma says nervously. She tries to hide the tremble in her voice, but he catches it.

 

“We may have never seen it, but that doesn’t mean that we won’t figure out what it is,” he assures her. He manages a little smile and she nearly cries with gratitude for him. There’s nobody else she could go through this with, no one in the world who could possibly keep her sane after years of experiments, years of running from soldiers and guns.

 

He’s her anchor, keeping her safely in the harbor. Left to her own devices, she would surely drift into the rocks.

 

“Thank you, Fitz,” she tells him. “I couldn’t do any of this without you.”

 

“You could,” he denies, brushing off her compliment and busying himself at his computer. “But I’m glad you don’t have to.”

 

“So am I,” she replies softly. “I hate to even say this, Fitz, but have you considered checking this against—“

 

“SHIELD’s database of known alien elements?” Fitz finishes. He looks at her cautiously over his shoulder. “I had thought about it, but I didn’t want to do that without you permission.”

 

“Why?”

 

“I know you’re…you’re scared, about what that might mean for you. And if you’re not ready to know then we just won’t find out.”

 

“We can’t just ignore the possibilities,” Jemma tells him. “It’s our duty as scientists—“

 

“It’s my duty to protect you,” he cuts her off. He spins on the stool to look at her seriously and she sucks in a sharp breath. “I’m not concerned with my duty to SHIELD or to science. I’m worried about _you._ I keep telling you, we’re doing all of this however you want to do it.”

 

“Oh.”

 

He smiles lopsidedly. “Yeah. So, do you _actually_ want to run that analysis? Or are you just saying that because you feel an obligation to exhaust every option in case we’ve somehow found an unheard of element in your body?”

 

She licks her lips nervously and looks away from him. “Can I think about it?”

 

“Of course you can. I’ve done about all I can on this project for the day, anyway. Coulson has me analyzing an O84.”

 

“He does?” Jemma asks curiously. “What is it?”

 

“We’re not sure,” he says. “We don’t even have it on the premises. I’m supposed to be trying to figure out what it’s made out of.”

 

He pulls up a video on his computer and presses play. A large, hulking man holds a metal object, shaped like an hourglass. A security guard runs toward him and the man shoves the object into the guard’s chest. He halts, slowly becoming overcome with—stone.

 

“Fitz,” Jemma gasps. “Fitz, that’s—that’s what happened to Theresa and all the others.”

 

“Wait, what?”

 

“Simmons,” May’s voice interrupts. Jemma spins around and finds May and Bobbi in the doorway to the lab. May gestures her forward but Jemma stands, frozen.

 

“Jemma?” Fitz asks worriedly. His palm between her shoulder blades shakes her from her stupor.

 

“So let me get this straight,” Jemma says slowly, piecing together . “This…metal obelisk, it turns people into stone?” 

 

“Yes,” May answers with a brisk nod. “Which is similar to what you described during your accident. We need you to look at the footage from the event, see if it’s what you saw that day.” 

 

Jemma gulps, and Bobbi turns over her shoulder to give her an apologetic look. “It’s really important, or we wouldn’t ask you to deal with this. If it is the same thing, though–” 

 

“Then I might be the only one who can stop this man,” Jemma finishes. She sighs, fingers brushing against her fresh scar on her abdomen. “Wonderful. Fitz already showed me the footage.”

 

“And?”

 

Jemma exchanges a heavy look with Fitz. “It’s the same thing.”

 

“We don’t know that Jemma could stop that,” Fitz jumps in. “She survived it once but we don’t know why or how. It could have been an anomaly of some kind. She could have been out of the direct zone of impact.”

 

“She’s the best agent we have for this,” May tells him sternly.

 

Jemma shuts her eyes and breathes deeply through her nose, trying to calm herself down and prevent a wind storm from overtaking the Playground. Closing her eyes doesn’t help; all she sees is Theresa, crumbling beneath her finger tips until there’s nothing left.

 

“We’ll talk about this,” Jemma finally says. Her eyes snap open and she finds all of the other agents looking at her. “I’m not going to go into this blind.”

 

“Coulson wants to hunt Creel down tomorrow.”

 

“Well, Coulson is going to have to wait,” Jemma insists. “Fitz and I need at least twenty four hours to figure out everything we can about this obelisk before I go chasing after him.”

 

The corners of Fitz’s lips quirk upwards. “I agree. We need to be as prepared as possible.”

 

May glances between them. “I’ll have to run this by Coulson. He may not agree.”

 

“Unfortunately, he doesn’t really have an option,” Jemma says. She crosses her arms and tries not to grin when Fitz mirrors her on her other side. “Last time I went in unprepared, I got hurt. Coulson and Skye could have been hurt as well, because of me. I’m not willing to risk that again.”

 

“Neither are we,” Bobbi offers. “Really, Jemma, nobody wants you to get hurt.”

 

“I know,” Jemma accepts with a brisk nod. “The best way to make sure that doesn’t happen is by letting Fitz and I take our time. It’s like you told me this afternoon, Agent Morse.”

 

Bobbi narrows her eyes at Jemma’s formal tone. “I thought I told you to call me Bobbi.”

 

“Right, Bobbi,” Jemma corrects. “Needless to say, I think you were right. I need a strategy. _This_ is a strategy.”

 

May shoots Bobbi a questioning glance and Bobbi straightens. “I meant something more like an action plan.”

 

“This is my action plan. Sometimes the best plan of action is to wait before taking action.”

 

Fitz rubs a hand over his mouth to hide his growing smile, clearing his throat before he speaks. “I think Jemma has a point. We’re partners. We’ll figure this out. Tell Coulson that.”

 

May and Bobbi meet eyes and turn around, heading for Coulson’s office. Fitz turns to Jemma with raised eyebrows and an appraising gaze.

 

“Where’d that all come from?”

 

“I know I’ve been fighting you a lot, about the field,” she starts, leaning on the lab counter. “I’m trying to figure out who I am and where I fit in this new universe.”

 

“Oh c’mon,” he snorts. “Jemma, this is hardly a new universe.”

 

“It’s a figure of speech,” she sighs, rolling her eyes. “And to me, it feels like it is. You’ve got to understand, I was—I thought you were Hydra. You thought I was dead. I didn’t know that any of this existed.”

 

She gestures wildly around their lab and he chews nervously on his lip.

 

“I haven’t been thinking clearly. I’m not…thinking like myself.”

 

“You’re not saying…you and me, we’re…”

 

“Oh no!” Jemma gasps, reaching out for him. “That’s not what I mean at all. I just mean—I’m here because of you. Because you made sure that SHIELD didn’t stop until they had me back, safe.”

 

“And why are you staying?” Fitz asks. She places her palm on his forearm, urging him to look at her.

 

“I’ll be honest with you, Fitz, there’s nowhere else for me to go,” she admits, voice cracking on the hard truth of the word. Something flashes in his eyes and she squeezes him. “But even if I could leave, go be whoever I wanted and do whatever I wanted, I wouldn’t want to go anywhere or do anything without you. You’re why I’m here. You’re what makes me happy to be here.”

 

“All of this reckless superhero stuff,” Fitz says, gesturing at her abdomen. “I can’t do that with you, Jemma. I wish that I could—“

 

“I don’t,” Jemma rushes to say. “I’m—Fitz, I am so glad that you aren’t like this. That you aren’t in danger, that I can keep you safe.”

 

“I’m still a SHIELD agent,” he reminds her. “You can’t always keep me safe.”

 

“I’ll do anything to try,” Jemma says softly.

 

“I know you will. That’s what scares me.”

 

She leans up to kiss him. “We’re partners. Even though you can’t be out there with me—“

 

“Who says I can’t? I’ve been in the field before.”

 

She glares up at him. “And we’ll discuss that later. What I’m trying to say is, I want you to be involved with everything.”

 

He opens his mouth to argue and then shuts it. “Alright. Good. Because I want to be there for you.”

 

“Let’s figure out what this thing is, shall we?” Jemma suggests, moving toward the computer. “Fill me in on who this Creel guy actually is.”

 

Fitz leans forward, typing rapidly and pulling up Creel’s profile. “His name’s Carl Creel. He can turn any part of his body into just about any substance he touches.”

 

Jemma’s eyebrows raise. “Wow. Well, that could be useful.”

 

“Exactly what I said,” Skye laughs behind them. “So I heard you’re putting down an ultimatum on AC.”

 

“I wouldn’t call it an ultimatum,” Jemma denies. “I just want to do this one my way.”

 

Skye grins. “Hey, you don’t need to explain yourself to me. I totally dig your Badass Lady in Charge thing. I just thought I’d stop by and see if I could help you two with your research.”

 

“Can you trace him back?” Jemma suggests. “If we can figure out where he was living every minute of his life, we might be able to figure out how he got this way.”

 

Skye’s smile drops. “I totally agree, but we’re not supposed to be figuring out how he got this way. We’re supposed to figure out how to stop him.”

 

Jemma blinks, looking away from Skye. “Right. I forget.”

 

“Jemma, I didn’t mean—“

 

“No, Skye, you’re right,” Jemma says. “We have to figure out how to stop him. Fitz and I will be looking into this weapon of his.”

 

Skye awkwardly retreats, bidding them both goodbye and telling them to let her know if she can help in any way. Fitz and Jemma shift straight into their work, moving around each other with ease.

 

“Are there any chemical compounds that could…dissolve a human being like that?” Fitz tries. “It might not give us the answer but it might get us closer.”

 

Jemma runs her hands over her hair and jots a few formulas down on the whiteboard behind him. They debate and bicker, falling into a familiar dance that lasts long into the early hours of the morning. They forego food, they don’t even notice the base lights dimming for the evening, and they eventually collapse onto stools side-by-side, defeated.

 

“What are you thinking?” Fitz asks after a long moment of silence.

 

“That this is completely alien to us,” Jemma mumbles, playing with her fingers. “Going after him may be the only way. Without it In our possession, we can’t figure out what it does or how it does it.”

 

“And if we get ahold of it, it might explain that unknown component in your biopsy.”

 

Jemma nods rather meekly. “I know this isn’t about me.”

 

Fitz shrugs. “It might be. We don’t know that it isn’t.”

 

She sighs, dropping her head to his shoulder and letting her eyes flutter shut in contentment as he kisses her forehead. “We should get some sleep. I have a feeling it’s going to be a busy day tomorrow.”

 

“Yeah,” Fitz agrees. “It will be. But we’ll deal with it, yeah? Together.”

 

“Fitz…”

 

“Let me come with you, when you go after him,” Fitz practically begs. “I can help.”

 

She gulps and burrows further into his neck. “We’ll see.”

 

He tenses beneath her touch and she frowns.

 

“It’s not that I think you’re incapable.”

 

“Sure it’s not,” he snaps. He extracts himself from her and stands. “I’m gonna go to bed.”

 

She trails after him quietly, eyes fixed on the square set of his shoulders. They change in silence, climbing into bed without a word. He rolls away from her as soon as the lights go out, and Jemma rolls onto her back, staring at the ceiling.

 

As early as tomorrow, she’ll know what she is. So will Fitz, and it terrifies her.


	12. everywhere i look i fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fitz and Jemma have a long overdue conversation about their feelings for one another, leading to an agreement between them. Bobbi asks Jemma for her help interrogating Sunil Bakshi, Daniel Whitehall's righthand man that Jemma has a past with. Seeing Bakshi for the first time since her escape drudges up dark memories, reawakening Jemma's instinct to run.

Fitz sighs, running his hands over his face and staring at the footage in front of them for the thousandth time. “That’s Raina. She’d been working with Garrett and Ward.”

 

“So what is she doing with Creel?” Jemma asks, sipping at her tea. Her hand reaches up to rest on Fitz’s shoulder and he shrugs her off. Stiffening, she reaches across him to click on Raina’s file.

 

“We think she works with Cal,” Fitz fills in. “And Cal, it seems, works with Whitehall.”

 

The sound of Whitehall’s name quickens her pulse and Jemma fights down the buzzing in her ribcage. “We’ve got to get more information on Whitehall. It just seems utterly impossible that he could be the same man from World War II. The way he looks now, it just…it doesn’t make sense.”

 

“It doesn’t,” Fitz agrees. “Bobbi and Hunter are going after Sunil Bakshi. We think he’ll give us more information on Whitehall. Bobbi has some intel that he may be Whitehall’s right hand man.”

 

He types the name into the database and pulls up his file. Jemma swallows and nods. “Yes. I saw this man, at the facility.”

 

“You did?”

 

“He followed Whitehall around like a puppy dog. Bakshi seemed incredibly afraid of him.”

 

“We should let Bobbi know that,” Fitz suggests. “It’ll give her an upperhand when she gets her hands on him in the interrogation room.”

 

“I don’t think Bakshi will be so easy to catch,” Jemma worries. “He’s incredibly cunning.”

 

Fitz snorts. “He’s got nothing on Bobbi Morse, I’ll guarantee that. She knows him well. She was deep undercover in Hydra, head of security.”

 

“She was?” Jemma gasps. “I had no idea.”

 

“Mhm,” Fitz hums. “Imagine my surprise when I think I’m dead meat for sure and all of a sudden the head of security is beating on her own goons.”

 

Jemma’s brow furrows. “Why were you at Hydra? A field mission?”

 

“I was undercover,” Fitz explains, rather shortly. “After the pod, Coulson sent me in.”

 

“How have you not told me that?” Jemma asks, the question sharp on her tongue. “You were _undercover_ at one of the most dangerous facilities on Earth and you didn’t think it was important to mention that to me?”

 

“It never came up,” Fitz shrugs. “It was right before we found you, anyway. I had other things on my mind once I caught up with you.”

 

Jemma swallows and shakes her head. His standoffishness is surely a result of last night’s conversation, and she feels the need to assuage his insecurities. “Fitz, it’s not that I don’t think you can do this.”

 

“Of course it’s not,” he grumbles sarcastically.

 

“Fitz—“

 

“No, Jemma. It’s the truth and we both know it.”

 

“I almost died because I couldn’t stand the thought of Coulson and Skye getting hurt,” Jemma bursts out. “I hardly know them, Fitz! If I’m out there, with you, I won’t be focused on getting the job done. All I’ll be thinking about is keeping you safe, even if that costs other people their lives.”

 

He freezes, turning to look at her slowly. “Really?”

 

She throws her hands up in frustration. “Of course, really. How much more clear can I make the way that I feel about you?”

 

“I…I just, we haven’t really talked about…we haven’t talked about it,” Fitz breathes. “We’ve been…”

 

“Living together?” Jemma questions, lips curling up on the edges. “Sleeping together? Having sex?”

 

His cheeks flush and he looks away from her. “Well, yeah. But we haven’t talked about what’s going on between us. What it means.”

 

Jemma licks her lips with a heavy sigh. “I know I’m not…I don’t…talking about my feelings isn’t something that I _do._ I just assumed that…that you knew.”

 

“That I knew what?” he asks quietly, moving closer to her. She risks a glance up at him, heart racing.

 

“That you knew that I…that I love you, Fitz,” she replies, so quietly that she’s sure he’s missed it. He closes the space between them, crashing his lips against hers.

 

When he pulls away, he beams at her so brightly she nearly has to look away again. A surge of excitement rushes through her and a small breeze blows through the lab. He laughs and tucks her hair behind her ear affectionately.

 

She’s pictured this moment a thousand times. She’d pictured it in her early days, trapped in that Hydra facility. She’d imagined it again and again, eventually letting the dream fade away as the probability of ever seeing him again reduced every hour. Then she’d built up walls to protect herself. If she could believe that Fitz, her lovely partner Fitz, was actually Hydra all along, she wouldn’t feel as horrible about not having realized her feelings for him until it was too late.

 

Ever since she saw him in that hotel room, she’s been biting back the words and swallowing them with every breath. Releasing them now, during a quiet morning alone in a lab, was never how she pictured it, but somehow it feels just right. It feels better than shouting it at him as Hydra agents tug her backward, or whispering it after taking a bullet for him.

 

The way she feels about him is, simply, epic, the kind of thing that ancient men infused into their gods. But they’re not gods, despite the power that hums in her lungs. They’re simply human and she loves him like one: wholly, painfully, blissfully, quietly.

 

“I love you too, Jemma. I probably always have.”

 

 _The quiet will do just fine_ , she thinks. The quiet is perfect.

 

“Me too,” she laughs. “But when we began, we were—“

 

“Sixteen and achingly shy?” Fitz finishes with a self-deprecating little grin. She laughs and squeezes his hands.

 

“Yes. Exactly.”

 

“Alright,” he concedes after a beat of gazing at one another.

 

“Alright what?”

 

“Alright, I’ll run comms from a safe location,” he says. “I don’t want to distract you in the field and this weapon, whatever it is…it could hurt a lot of people. I don’t want to be responsible fro that.”

 

“Neither do I,” she says, face crumbling with relief. “Fitz, thank you. For understanding.”

 

“Yeah, well, I guess I see how you feel,” he admits. “If it were the other way around, I think I’d give up the world for you.”

 

“Well let’s hope you never get the chance,” she teases. “I rather like the world.”

 

He rolls his eyes fondly and presses a kiss to her cheek. “Go tell Bobbi everything you know about Bakshi. She and Hunter are leaving in fifteen minutes.”

 

“Got it,” she chirps. She skips out of the lab and he watches her go, shaking his ahead at the lightness surrounding her despite the inevitability of facing a man who can absorb any material, armed with a deadly weapon that killed an entire lab of people around her.

 

 _She loves me_ , he thinks to himself. _She actually said that, she said she loves me._

 

It takes him nearly five whole minutes to refocus on the task at hand.

 

***

 

“Jemma,” Bobbi calls down the hallway. Jemma spins around, surprised to see her S.O. back from the mission so soon. Bobbi is a little bit sweaty, her lip slightly swollen, but otherwise appears completely fine.

 

“Bobbi! You’re back early.”

 

Bobbi shrugs, looking pleased. “Turns out I’ve still got it after all.”

 

Jemma smiles kindly. “I’m glad to see your field skills are still excellent.”

 

“Me too,” Bobbi agrees. “I’m letting Bakshi stew in the Vault for a little bit, but I was wondering if you’d be willing to help me out with the interrogation. You said that you knew him. He did some pretty awful things in that facility, didn’t he?”

 

Jemma shivers at the memory of Lincoln screaming and nods. “Yes. Yes he did.”

 

“You deserve a chance at some payback,” Bobbi offers, voice even. Jemma’s eyes widen in surprise. “I know you’re not all that comfortable with the idea of running out there and fighting Creel. None of us want you to have to do that.”

 

“What are you suggesting?”

 

“If we can figure out what it is through Bakshi, then we can eliminate a lot of variables. We can try to take Creel down from a distance and neutralize the O84.”

 

Jemma considers this carefully before nodding in agreement. “I think that’s a good idea. Fitz and I haven’t found any more information on the Obelisk. I’d be going in completely blind.”

 

“Great. I’m just going to go change and then we’ll go. Meet you in the living room?”

 

“Wait, Bobbi!” Jemma gasps as her S.O. turns away. “You’re bleeding.”

 

Bobbi glances down at her side, where a large patch of dried blood peeks through her shirt. She scrunches her nose and then shrugs.

 

“Oh,” Bobbi notes casually. “Didn’t even notice that.”

 

Jemma rolls her eyes. “I’m going to patch you up.”

 

“I don’t need—“

 

“You do,” Jemma says firmly. Bobbi laughs lightly and leads the way toward Jemma’s bunk.

 

“You do realize that I’m your S.O. right? Not the other way around?” Bobbi teases.

 

Jemma narrows her eyes and practically frog-marches Bobbi into her and Fitz’s room. She grabs her first aid kit from the cabinet and sits Bobbi down on the desk chair. “I’m still reacclimating to SHIELD’s hierarchy of authorities.”

 

Bobbi snorts. “Sure, Simmons. Let’s get this over with. I don’t want to let him stew for too long. That’s when they start scheming.”

 

“See, you are the supervising officer,” Jemma appeases her. “You’re teaching me something. What is the proper stewing time for suspects?”

 

Bobbi laughs outright, sitting as still as possible as Jemma bandages her wound. The biochemist sighs, standing and brushing her hands on her pants.

 

“It’s not too bad,” Jemma tells Bobbi. “It seems like a graze from a bullet.”

 

“Sounds about right,” Bobbi confirms. “Alright, I’m going. I’ll just meet you back here, you should probably…scrub out.”

 

Jemma glances down at the blood on her hands, now smeared across her pants, and groans. “I’ve already had to change three times today.”

 

Bobbi takes a quick glance around the room as she leaves, throwing a teasing remark over her shoulder. “Damn, Fitz must be _really_ good. Of course, I figured that out already when my pictures fell off the wall.”

 

Jemma’s face burns hot as Bobbi shuts the door. As much as Fitz seems to…enjoy when she loses her powers in the bedroom, she should probably learn to reel that in. She rinses off in the bathroom and changes into a new pair of pants before joining Bobbi on the walk to the Vaults.

 

“If this is too difficult at any point, just leave,” Bobbi says supportively. “I know that facing your demons is never easy.”

 

“It won’t be,” Jemma concedes. “But I have to.”

 

Bobbi frowns. “You don’t have to do any of this. You’re not under direct orders, or—“

 

“It’s not about SHIELD,” Jemma says, cutting her off. “This is about me. And Lincoln, and all of the others. It’s about what he took from me, from all of us.”

 

“I get it. Probably more than most other people. Listen, it can get—intense down there. I may do things that you don’t agree with. We need this information, Jemma. I don’t want to sound Coulson-level dramatic, but lives depend on us and we don’t have a lot of time.”

 

“I understand.”

 

“I’m going to do whatever it takes,” Bobbi warns her. “And I expect you to do the same. Interrogations are video taped, and usually someone is watching from the control room, but the level of accountability is honestly pretty low."

 

Bobbi types in the code for the vault without further comment, leading the way down the stairs.

 

“Mr. Bakshi,” Bobbi greets him coolly. “I think you know my partner, Agent Jemma Simmons.”

 

Jemma nearly corrects her—after all, she’s unsure what her status technically is, now—but decides against it. “Hello.”

 

It’s harder than she’d expected, seeing his face. The wind within her picks up to a painful level. The pressure in her chest is nearly rib-splitting but she focuses on her breathing instead until it subsides to a bearable level.

 

Sunil Bakshi leans back in his seat as far as his cuffs will allow him. “Is that her name? We just called her Experiment 103.”

 

Bobbi’s shoulder tense, a muscle in her jaw twitching before she smiles. It’s a snarl of a grin that gives Jemma goosebumps and she’s not even on the receiving end of it.

 

“How does it feel?” Bobbi asks, leaning forward onto the table in a challenge. “Now you’re at her mercy, and you know what she can do.”

 

Jemma takes Bobbi’s dramatic pause as a cue to remind him of her skills. Carefully, as to not accidentally unlock him from the table, Jemma pushes a hand forward and concentrates a gust of wind so forceful that he lets out a shout of pain. She’s sure that she severely bruised his sternum.

 

“What do you know about Daniel Whitehall?” Bobbi asks immediately after Jemma pulls back. Jemma is grateful; Bobbi seems to sense that she’s feeling rattled by what she’s just done and needs a moment to collect herself.

 

“Daniel Whitehall died in the 1980s, Agent Morse,” Bakshi pants, curling in around himself from the pain. “SHIELD’s recordkeeping must be quite subpar.”

 

“Don’t forget who you’re dealing with,” Jemma spits angrily. “I saw you in that facility, following him around like his pet. Tell us everything you know.”

 

“You can’t let her hurt me,” Bakshi reminds Bobbi, voice bordering on a plea. “I’m a prisoner.”

 

Bobbi shrugs. “See, that would have been true before Hydra. But now, we _technically_ don’t exist. So we’re not _technically_ bound by any international agreements.”

 

“Here at SHIELD, we do love our technicalities,” Jemma agrees with a tightlipped smile at Bakshi. “I’m surprised that you’re not more interested in seeing what I’m capable of. You seemed so keen on finding out when I was the one in a cage.”

 

Bakshi gulps. “What do you want to know about Whitehall?”

 

“What does he want with powered people?” Bobbi asks immediately.

 

“To understand how they get their powers, to replicate them,” Bakshi blurts out. Bobbi looks at Jemma cautiously. This has been too easy and she knows it.

 

“Why?”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

Bobbi sighs dramatically, taking a seat in the chair across from her. “Come on, Bakshi. We both know that isn’t true.”

 

“He kept his plans to himself,” Bakshi insists. “He didn’t trust that I wouldn’t eventually be captured. It appears his worries were well-founded.”

 

Jemma observes him carefully, the way that his hands curl into nervous little fists. “You’re lying. Why does he want to replicate powers so badly?”

 

“I’ve already explained that I don’t know,” Bakshi replies slowly, voice patronizing. Bobbi sucks in a sharp breath and nods at Jemma.

 

“Alright, feel free to do your worst.”

 

Jemma raises her hand upward toward him and he flinches. “He wants to give powers to the strongest agents.”

 

Jemma scoffs. “Whatever this is, however this happened, it’s random! There’s no scientific explanation!”

 

“Oh, but there is, Experiment 103,” Bakshi smiles coldly. “Are you telling me you still haven’t found it?”

 

“Don’t call me that!” Jemma shouts. She can’t control the anger that bubbles up inside of her. Her hand flies out and she concentrates on the oxygen in his lungs, removing it piece by piece. “What did this? How do I reverse it?”

 

“You can’t,” Bakshi gasps, his face contorting as he tries to catch his breath again. “It’s not…you can’t reverse it.”

 

“What did this?” Jemma repeats. “What made me like this?”

 

“The…obelisk…”

 

Jemma stumbles back, her hand dropping. Bakshi sucks in several panicked breaths and Bobbi reaches over to touch Jemma’s shaking hand.

 

“Your…people,” Bakshi says carefully, “are the only ones who can touch it.”

 

“It has to be me,” Jemma tells Bobbi. “I have to get it.”

 

“How many are there?” Bobbi barks at their prisoner.

 

“I don’t know,” Bakshi admits. Bobbi scans his eyes, searching for any hint of dishonesty. “Whitehall has been searching for another one ever since he found the immortal woman.”

 

“The immortal woman?” Jemma echoes. “Who was that?”

 

“Experiment 3,” Bakshi tells them. “We found her in China, in a small village. Whitehall harvested her organs and created a serum from her cells that allowed him to reverse the aging process.”

 

“Which is how he looks so young. He stopped the clocks,” Bobbi ponders.

 

“He didn’t just stop the clocks,” Jemma corrects. “He practically travelled back in time.”

 

An unsettling silence fills the Vault until Bakshi speaks once more. “I assume that I’ll be granted some sort of immunity for my compliance?”

 

“Of course,” Bobbi answers immediately. A wicked smile dances on her lips. “Compliance will be rewarded, after all.”

 

Bakshi flinches. Jemma has no idea what those words mean to him, but apparently they have Bobbi’s desired effect.

 

“I’ll tell you what your reward is,” Bobbi says as she stands. She nods toward Jemma, who watches Bakshi dispassionately. “I won’t let Agent Simmons kill you.”

 

Bobbi swings open the door, leading Jemma out. When they leave the Vault completely, Bobbi turns to her with sympathetic eyes.

 

“Are you okay? Do you need a minute?”

 

Jemma takes a deep breath. She meets Bobbi’s gaze and shakes her head once, shaking out her trembling hands and bounces anxiously on her toes. “I need to run.”

 

“Run from what?”

 

“I just…I need to run,” Jemma explains with panicked breath, voice thickening. “Outside. I need to run outside.”

 

“Alright,” Bobbi says soothingly. “We can do that.”

 

Jemma shakes her head more wildly. “No. I need to be alone.”

 

Bobbi runs a hand through her hair, debating the pros and cons of letting her run around in the field above the playground. She supposes it can’t really hurt. After all, Jemma is more than capable of defending herself. Having faced down her own captors more than once, Bobbi understands where her training agent is coming from.

 

“Alright. That’s fine, but you’ve got to wear your tracker.”

 

“Deal,” Jemma nods briskly. She turns on her heel and stalks to her bunk, slamming through the door and yanking off her usual clothes. In the month or so that she’d returned to the lab, she had slowly begun to dress like herself again—or at least, the version of herself that she’d been before her transformation into something completely new.

 

The silky blouses and high-waisted jeans that had been staples of her wardrobe in her earlier life had been of no use to her in her time on the run. Now, she puts on a pair of athletic pants and a t-shirt, shoving her feet into her new trainers. One advantage of having a selection of her own clothes again had been getting a pair of shoes that didn’t create blisters all over her feet.

 

She almost grabs for a pair of headphones and an mp3 player, but opts against it. She prefers to run in silence, allowing her to stay on guard at all times. The last thing she grabs is her tracking bracelet, slapping it on and making her way to the ladder that will release her into the outside world.

 

As soon as she’s in the fresh air again, she takes a deep breath. The buzzing in her chest doesn’t abate, but it soothes her nonetheless. Jemma stares into the vast space of grass ahead, the sparse woods roughly two miles away. The wind whips at her hair and she manages a small smile. She’s hardly spent more than 48 hours in one place since she escaped Hydra, and she’s been living at the Playground for a little over two months now.

 

Seeing Bakshi again, being called that vile, dehumanizing name that she’d been called—as though she no longer existed, as though Jemma Simmons had died and been replaced by a lab rat—has her thought scrambled all over the place. Hearing his voice reminds her painfully of the times she’d heard it one cell over, followed shortly thereafter with Lincoln Campbell screaming.

 

The guilt of their separation briefly floods all of her senses. She uses it to propel herself forward, taking pleasure in the feeling of solid, natural earth smacking against the soles of her feet. It comes to her in flashes and with each heavy step she pushes one image behind her.

 

Lincoln, covered in blood, visible only through the small window between them.

 

_Smack._

Whitehall’s face, peering at her as the water fills the tank she stands in, palms banging against the glass desperately.

 

_Smack._

 

The printed letters on the door to her containment room. Experiment 103.

 

_Smack._

 

Standing across from Lincoln in a large room, Whitehall, Bakshi and their men safely tucked away on the other side of the glass. A small girl, no more than 10 years old, seated between them. Pistol to her head. Lincoln stares at her with an apology in his eyes and she nods in understanding as he raises his hand and shoots a bolt of lightning into her gut.

 

_Smack._

The sound of the gunshot anyway.

 

_Smack. Smack. Smack._

Her pace increases muscles burning with the exertion. Before she knows it, she’s stumbling through the small wooded area. Branches and brambles scratch at her legs but she presses on, unable to stop. Sweat drips from her brow into her eyes and she wipes at it furiously.

 

Only then does she realize she’s crying. She stumbles and falls against the bark of a narrow tree, a sob ripping from her throat.

 

“JEMMA!” Fitz’s panicked voice calls out. “JEMMA!”

 

She raises her face to look out into the trees, back toward the Playground. She can’t even see it in the distance anymore. She’s not sure how long she was running for, but she knows she’s gone further than she expected. She stares down at her tracker bracelet, finding it to be flashing and red.

 

She’s gone out of range. Jemma does her best to collect herself as she walks toward Fitz’s voice.

 

“Fitz? I’m here!”

 

He stumbles into view, shirt untucked and ICER drawn. Fitz’s eyes are wild as they roam over her, checking for injuries. He frowns at the blood running down one of her calves and drops his gun after a beat.

 

“What the hell is going on?” he asks, short of breath. His hands find their place on his hips and the familiar gesture brings on a whole new wave of emotion. She launches herself at him to hold him tightly.

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“Hey,” he mumbles, concerned. “It’s alright. Are you okay? What happened?”

 

“I’m Experiment 103,” she sniffs loudly. He squeezes her tighter, his cheek resting on her sweaty hair.

 

“No, you’re not,” he assures her. “You’re Jemma Simmons.”

 

“I have to be the one,” she tells him softly. She collapses against him and he lowers her to the ground, leaning his back against a tree to properly nestle her against him. “I’ve got to get that Obelisk back. It’s what—‘

 

“I know,” he soothes her, running his hand over her spine. “I was watching the tapes.”

 

She freezes, tightening her grip against his neck. He feels her breathing stop completely. “You saw what I did.”

 

“Jemma,” he says, pushing her back so that he can awkwardly crane his neck to meet her eyes. “I have seen SHIELD agents do far worse things to people for less. Hell, I’ve got a few gadgets that I would _love_ to try out on that—“

 

“Don’t,” she interrupts. “You’re…you’re the last good thing, okay? Please don’t…don’t do anything bad for me.”

 

He swallows and nods. “I’ll do my best.”

 

A breeze rustles the branches surrounding them and she shivers. “It’s getting dark. We should head back.”

 

Fitz chuckles lowly. “You’re going to need to give me a couple more minutes. I’m pretty sure this is the furthest I’ve ever run.”

 

She laughs, wiping away the remnants of her tears and scooting back to give him more space to catch his breath.

 

“We’ll walk back.”

 

“Damn right we will,” he grumbles teasingly, playing with her fingers on his leg. “Sometimes I’m gonna need you to slow down for me.”

 

She nods and stands, brushing herself off. Jemma reaches down to help him up and he groans loudly. He stares out toward the vast field that will bring them back to the Playground.

 

“Wanna just…gust me all the way back there?” he jokes. “Or I can just hover beside you. No movement necessary.”

 

“Don’t get lazy on me now,” Jemma laughs. She intertwines their fingers and leads the way out of the forest. The warmth of his hand in hers soothes the sting of her earlier panic attack that had brought her this far, but tomorrow is another day, another challenge.

 

Tomorrow, she’ll face the man who can become anything. Tomorrow, she’ll be in possession of the thing that made her what she is.

 

Tomorrow, she’ll find out what exactly that means. 


End file.
